More Mud!

Here's an experiment which I have wanted to try with the AMMO heavy mud products... putting them on 'regular' miniatures and their bases.

While the typical use for powders, pigments and other similar materials are considered ideal for vehicles, I wanted to see what would happen with these same products on one of my Bolt Action weapon teams.

Just as I did with the half track vehicle in the last AMMO article, I started out with the moist ground heavy mud.  Since these are supposed to be more of a forest base in late spring and early summer, a bit of wet mud around the gun emplacement would make sense.

It wasn't just the color I was after, but the texture as well.  Once this material dries, it actually feels like mud when you touch it.  This can be applied very thickly, which saves a lot of time... no need to build up layers.

I also wanted to see how this would work and look on miniatures.  The bottom edges of the coats and the boots were definitely a well suited location to test this out.  Since it is an oil based material, I could go back in later and manipulate it with another brush... softening an edge here and there.

I even sprinkled and brushed on some powdered pigments while the heavy mud was still fresh to see what would happen!

Once I mixed that in with the heavy mud, I got some very nice clumps of semi-dried dirt.

I was very happy with how a quick application of the AMMO muds changed the entire look of the base! It is important to note that the base had already been painted and darkened down to set up these lighter colors.

This is all part of the pre-planning and chess match that is needed with multi-step materials and techniques such as weathering.

Here are a few shots in the photo booth prior to the addition of foliage.

Voila!  Shrubs and such added, which now play off the warm but neutral mud colors nicely!