Hi all. Just thought I'd share some groundwork I tried out. Its all natural, and no paint was used. Everything you see is made up of dried spices and other stuff from the kitchen (curry powder, chillie flakes, coffee, tea leaves, etc). I find that there are endless combinations one can mix and match to get the right sort of soil for a dio, from dusty summer to muddy spring.

For example, instant coffee powder, when heavily doused with hairspray, looks like thick mud. Different types of chillie and curry powders give a great dry soil look. Peterselie looks just like leaf mould. Coarse chillie flakes look like autumn leaves.

The base I've shown was for a 1/16 fig, but by grinding the spices finer they can be used for smaller scales. I had added some twigs and dried moss, but I've removed most of it, along with the the fig so that you can see the ground better.

Word of warning: your workroom's going to smell like an Indian curry shop for a while, but the smell of the spices soon fade, especially when you use hair spray to set it. I ddn't use glue at all, just several layers of hairspray and spices so that the texture is preserved.



This second pic is with a flash. Colours are a bit off, but you can see a bit more detail.



I've used this technique for most of my fig bases as it's a lot cheaper and looks pretty ok. You can't really see much in my next pic, but here's an example. You can see more in my July FOTM entry which I'm submitting soon.