I'm planning on building a dio of a crash landed P-38 and I was wondering what material I should use for the ground. the ground will be ripped up because of the plane. and what should I use for grass.

hi, use gypsum for the ground and scatter sand and static grass over it when it is still wet, if it is almost dry you can make the track of the sliding p-38, Good Luck

Laurie

A second option you could research is celluclay (paper mache). It is a bit rougher in texture and may serve a crash scene nicely.

Grass - try to get ahold of some static grass (woodland scenic produces it). A base of white glue mixed with water should be layed down as a base over the 'ground' then you sprinkle on the static grass (generously). Let it dry a bit and remove the excess.
Other grass options are trimmed hemp rope (the really rough twine stuff) or old paint brush bristles cut to length.

hi again, The static grass I used is maybe very expensive but it is great stuff!! You can buy the static grass by a Gamesworkshop (that's where they sell Warhammer).

Laurie

Duckfan

What I usually do when making groundworks for dios is: First make the basic shapes of the groundworks from Styrofoam. Any leveling in your terrain can be built up with this stuff.. Easy to use and super light of weight. With this styrofoam you can also already cut out the rough forms of the planes slide path.
Next thing is covering everything with Wallspackle. Great stuff doesn`t cost much and is available in every DIY shop, comes in a big tube. While the wallspackle is still wet sprinkle sand over it to give it a little more ground texture.
When that is cured spray it in different tones of brown.
When the overspray is cured I take some diluted white glue and I cover the parts where I want my grass (static gras or bristles from soft haired brushes) and glue them onto my dio base. For long grass I first drill holes and then stick the grass in

Then placing the model into your dio do some more weathering on your vehicle and/or the groundworks and voila dio finished

Hi,

Model railroad stores have great diorama helpers like ballast, riverbed gravel, talus (rocks in different sizes), etc. Go visit a sand and gravel site, or a marble cutter. It's trash to them and gold to us.
I have been experiementing with the Golden line of artists gels, mediums and pastes. Wow! You can do almost anything from their pumice filled paste for a gravelly surface, to adding some acrylic paint to tint the clear products for water, to hard paste for tool workable areas, etc. I have added microballons, fine dirt, fine silicon carbide sandblast media, etc. I am experimenting with them to see what i like. Might even do an article if I like the results.
The other covered the grass thing. Don't forget dried tea leaves for dead leaves.

Sealhead

I use either Celluclay, or Sculptamold. The latter is a train layout deal that is really great to work with. I highly reccomend it.

~Chip :-)

heres a very common idea use plaster of paris while still wet add grit sand or a mixture u could get some plaster of paris and mix a mixture up including dry sand with no stones aswell as powder paint coloured as earth brown this is just some experience i have picked up modelling dios
goodluck!!