Well, I just finished my first model (a desert coloured Dingo Mk2, Tamiya). And want to set it up in a desert diorama. I've got the whole idea in my head, but I'm strugling with the materials I should use. I read a lot of different types of materials being used here, and am not sure what are the best for my diorame. Can you all give me your advise what type of materials I should use? The surface will me a bit bumpy, with rocks and low/small groves. There will be one, slightly higher dune as
well.

Hope you all can help

Hi Daniel

First off, are you thinking of making a diorama for the dingo or just have it on a base with some ground work ? If all you need is a little groundwork for a base then I would go with some sand . {sandbox sand will work } Run it through a strainer to get rid of the bigger chunks and make it more to scale. Then add a couple of off size patches of light green to straw colored grass. A cheep source of the grass would be a cheap paint brush. Just cut it to size, and paint . Keep in mind that grass does not grow all the same size at the same time.
If you are thinking of adding your Dingo to a diorama. Then I would suggest doing some planning first. Speaking for myself, I always start a dio with a sketch. It does not have to be a perfect sketch, {mind look more like something a young kid would draw } Just something to get your idea from your mind down to paper. That way you can play around with an idea, and see how things work, how they might look that sort of thing. When you have an strong idea of what you want then you can start looking at options for materials.
This is just the way I do it . There really is no right or wrong way. Good luck, I hope this was of some help.
Harry

There are both rocky deserts and the typical endless sand dune deserts. The trick is the scale. Rocks can be both jagged or semi smooth and these can be found in your garden, local gardening store or a construction site. Just make sure it doesn't seem too big when stacked against your vehicles/figs. As for sand, beach sand comes close but you'll have to check it off for scale against your model to make sure its fine enough. Not sure if you can get hold of this but it should be available in gardening store. Its actually a fertilizer called Rock Phosphate or sometimes known as Christmas Island Rock Phosphate, as it came from Christmas Island.

Its basically a finely, ground down rock and it hardly dissolves in water so no problem sticking it down with water based glues. Its normally a nice shade of brown coming close to desert sand but its made advantage is the texture is really fine.

Not sure if this will help but the little dio I did a long time ago uses natural pebbles and fine soil that has been sifted. The scrub was from a lichen like material coated with tea leaves. It features the Ramcke brigade in Libya.

Hey thanks so far!
@ Beachbum..this is exactly what I was thinking about, only slightly bigger and a higher dune..
thank you both for the tips!