Moezilla was asking about sandbags and I made this sketch up on how I create sandbags.

I use tissue; make small bags; fill with fine sand (HO railroad ballast), and then ties them off with rigging thread. Once I make up the number I need, I grab them with tweezers, dip them in a 50/50 White Glue and Water solution and lay them on the model or base. I will occasionally rip a bag and let the sand spill out. Once dried, I paint, weather and dry-brush.







Hope it makes sense.

John

Well let me be the first to say WOW, what a cool little technique, REAL mini sandbags
only problem i can think of is they would be time consuming to do alot of them.
Cheers, good stuff

Excellent tip. Thanks John.

As I said in the other post, great tip! I really never thought to make sandbags buy actually making sandbags. A nice change from the traditional putty or clay bags.

Great tip. It's not comfortable as the putty method but it' much more realistic. Thanks for sharing

Hi John,
Thats more than a tip,almost an invention very good idea my friend. I copied the drawing .I will try it soon and maybe using a thin cloth can be better than tissue paper.
bestest regards

As already touched on by previous replies, I think this is a great idea to explore! Never thought to literally 'make' sandbags... Mebbe you could use something finer than sand to fill, (would talcum powder work?) as would pack out bags well proper. And mebbe if portraying a split bag, you could colour the fill before-hand...

It is a great way to make realistic looking sandbags! I would like to add my two cents, the way I do it is using woodland scenics instead of white glue with 70/30 mixture with water (I think it works a little better than the white glue). I also add paint to the mixture to precolor the sandbags to give it a good base color. Don't soak the sand bags too long, when they are wet they will tear easily. Happy sandbagging!

It's not as easy as making sandbags with putty, but it is a nicer methode, that's for sure!

Thanks for sharing!

I've seen this done before about 5 years ago and haven't seen it written up since - Nice post.

It is very time consuming and the results are very nice. It takes care of the texture, seams, and tieend issues.

Forgot to mention I tendto color the white glue/water mixture a medium brown. it drys lighter and even colors the sand for those ripped bags. Makes it easier to paint later.

John

Thanks, that's a great idea, and good relaxing therapy, for those long boring nights at the insane asylum. I wonder how many I could turn out in an 8 hour shift, and would they survied the drive home without breaking. Since I would simply make them at work, and soak and color and set them on the piece at home where I do my finish modelling.

Like Engin, I also saved the picture.

Great to post this here John, so everyone can see this. I think this warrants a 'sticky' or inclusion in the Digital Diamond series area.

Use a needle and pop holes in the bags when they're starting to harden and let some sand spill out, instant gun shot impacts.

Next dio I use sandbags in I will give this method a go for sure.

Great lookin bags.

for us Noobs... what is the putty method?

This is a tip passed onto me by Martinnn:

First step is to make cilinders of about 10 cm long and 0.8cm - 1 cm thick.

Second step is to cut the cilinder into pieces of 1 cm

Third step is to make little cubes of them with your hands

Now you can just press them on your model. Use your hands to get them into position. No need to glue them, the'll stick to your model!

Last step is to press on your sandbags with mesh or bandage, to get some structure in them, and to make seams with a knife or something sharp.

Great idea! It's look very realistic, and they seems to be quite easy to make.

i just tried this tecnique it SUCKED. JK this is perhaps the most genius sandbag making tecnique yet thanx for sharing this.

It is slow, tedious and a major pain in the butt... but other then that I like the effect! But as some one said I would hate to do too many of these

John