Gentelmen
Im looking to add a couple of burnt out trees and grass in my next dio, and wondering what techniques to use. For trees i will use darkened roots, but for grass, i have no idea. Any help would be great!
Cheers
-Chris ( Ziggy)

Have you tried to burn them with a propane torch?

Outside of cause.

As much fun as torching grass sounds, might I recommend searching for black static grass first.

You might check this site out and do a search. Tons of diorama related videos

http://www.plasticmodelsworld.com

I wouldn't try torching static grass as it's poly-something synthetic fibers. You'll either end up with a melted mess, or more likely setting fire to your entire diorama! Plenty of scenes of bush and forest fires on the news these days. When grass burns, first it dries from the approaching heat and then burst into flames leaving nothing but scorched earth in seconds. Just airbrush the ground matte black with a few burned ends of the odd bush sticking up.

Chris,

I have used an acrylic charcoal paint thinned down for both trees and grass. Then dust with MIG smoke and ashes pigments. Then over all spray with Dullcoat to fix everything. Add a little more ashes pigment to the grass area to make it look freshly burned.

Just not black! make sure there are plenty of ashy-greys in there!

Not just black and grey but the ground is often still ground color and some grasses are just partially burned. There is a lot of color variation in a burned off area. Smoke grenades and dry scrub land in August don't mix.

Thank you all for your suggestions. Ill give it a shot and post pics when im done.
Again, thanks.
Chris

And it can depend a lot on the terrain and the type of vegetation, too. Ravines can funnel fire up their length, scorching the ground in the ravine while leaving surrounding terrain untouched, and in drier areas where you have patchy ground cover, the vegetation-free terrain can be largely unchanged in color, with only a light sprinkling of ash, but where the undergrowth is heavier, the ash cover is more even.

For a small, localized fire, fleshier plants will survive better, because of their higher water content, but in the dry season, only succulents (like the ice plant used in SoCal as a fire break) will survive a fire without being burned to the ground. Remembering the times I've tramped over recently-burned-over hills back when I was in the Boy Scouts spreading seed to get soil cover in place to prevent erosion, though, you'll still find clumps that escaped the full force of the fire because of wind or terrain.