Ola James
Well Easiest way of creating levelling in your groundwork is to use styrofoam. The exact same stuff that is used for insulating homes. (not the kind with the little balls but the more foamy type. Buy a tube of acrylic based wallspackle from the DIY store. Mix it with some birdcage sand and some acrylic paint in the mix in the color you want your groundwork to be... For extra stickyness you can also add some amount of whiteglue. Smear it onto the styrofoam levelling and that is at least one bit of your groundwork covered. Take static grass, which you will find in pretty much all of the Hobbystores/modellrailroad stores. Smear white glue where you want your grass to be and sprinkle/stick/ throw your static grass on. Even easier is getting hold of Heki DecoVlies (modelrailroad store) simply press it in the still not cured Wallspackle, whiteglue mix.
Easy peasy
As for snow... what I recommend you to get is the sand used for sandblasting. It is really fine. And it has this sparkly effect that fresh snow also has. Works brilliant. The nice stuff is also that the Snow remains white and shiny for ever. Not like talcumpowder which turns out a bit grayish after a few years or like sugarpowder which I expect will eventually be the house for all the bugs in the neighbourhood. Nor is it unhealthy like some other commercially available snowproducts.
The following link shows the results I got with this stuff. all the snow and frost are made with this stuff.
"Eiskalt..." I hope my suggestions will be of some use to you. The abovementioned stuff is all easy to get and for most of the products quite cheap too. Styrofoam is not expensive and if you buy it at the DIY store you get such a quantity that you easily can make another huge load of dio's, Wallspackle is dirt cheap and it gives you a big tube which will last quite a few dio's, Woodglue idem dito. Easily available in the local DIY stores at nice prices. Acrylic paint and static grass can be found at any hobbyshop/modelrailroad store for the normal prices. the only problem could be the sandblasting sand but go by a sandblaster and he will give you the sand without problems. ( I know I had no problems)
With friendly greetz
Robert Blokker
