Roman Volchenkov [Bizarre] reviews Noch Natur+ product for Arable land.

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Thanks!

While this may look good, any vehicle you place on it will look like it has just been para-dropped - since the base is pre-formed, there is no opportunity to make tread or tire tracks, and any vehicle will look like it's floating on the sod chunks. The same goes for figures. Oops!! Am I allowed to criticize a product?

sorry, have you read it? "However, if you would like to position a tank or other vehicle inside the field of ploughed land you would have to make track marks or tire marks using a modelling clay or similar forming material with further painting."

I think Biggles has a point, to a point. In order to make tire/tread marks, you'd have to chisel off the top layer of sod or cut out completely, the "lanes" your tires/treads are going to make. Then go back and fill in with the stuff Roman mentioned, hoping that the texture & color matched the original. Sounds like more work than it's worth if you plan to set a vehicle on it. Though it could be useful for small sections on a dio where no vehicle would be located.

I am not quite following you guys. I think I wrote exactly the same in the review text. No?

If you have to go to that much work, you may as well just scratch the entire bit with a blob of Celluclay. Cheaper, and you can make it whatever size you want.

Those who ever went with their (tracked) vehicle through a field will know that the tracks do show very clear. So, texture and colour do not have to match with the surroundings.
I think it is a usable product.
Thanks for showing and reviewing it!

Paul,

Thanks for this. That is what I was going to bring up; I've noted around construction sites and recreational vehicle areas that, unless the machine churns up ground moistened recently, that the disturbed ground can look very different to what is just below the surface.

F'instance, around here, we have that bright orange clay. But after it bakes in the sun a few days, it lightens up; drive across something rough enough to disturb it and you will have orange tracks across tan ground. I see the same scene in our garden - hoe a furrow days after it was disced and the furrow dirt looks different than the undisturbed area.

Likewise, run something across disturbed ground and it compacts, which can make the color seem different. That's because of the way light reflects.

About a minute into this video you can see that (what isn't covered by grass) surface dirt is lighter than the churned dirt: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mwnVEHA6Wd0

An even better example is the header photo of this article: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-3078169/Mad-Max-tank-speeds-bumps-70-mph-Super-lightweight-Peacemaker-built-two-brothers-stars-new-Fury-Road-film.html


So create your own tracks on this model and one does not have to exactly match the product color to be 100% authentic.

I can't find the tank show featured here back last summer, one that had many photos of M10 Achilles; I recall it had several images of what i am trying to describe.

However, the first few photos here kind of shows what I mean in my previous post. Note along the edge of the dirt that it is lighter than where the treads have been: http://armorama.kitmaker.net/features/4959

This is probably the best example of how tank tracks can change the apparent color of dirt by either churning it up, or smushing it down: http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-24987676

1/48 scale model on a piece of "Arable land" from that review.

Roman,

Looks realistic to me!

I've been meaning to write again (and post a photo) - churned earth packed by heavy vehicles can also be lighter in color. At a construction site is a path of the dozers and earthscrapers; the freshly dozed dirt is a sienna but where the tracks and treads have rolled over it, it is a buff.