What is the best way to landscape a layout with grass (mat or “powder” form) and make it realistic? What are some helpful techniques to do that?
A lot of us use something called static grass. It comes in different lengths and is applied with an applicator that uses a static charge to make the grass stand on end.
This is a photo of some off mine. The little field stones also came with the grass.
Here is my home made applicator made from a $5.00 fly swatter. There are You-Tube video’s on how to make them. It takes just a few minutes.
Is that a woodland scenics product?
I believe this is Noch. But they are more or less all the same.
Here’s a link to the Walther’s site.
This is a scene on my layout, also using static grass:
This is a mixture of 4 and 6 mm lengths of static grasses from Silflor. The Woodland Scenics line only has 2 mm grass, which I find tends to look more “fuzzy” than “grassy.” I applied this with one of the cheap Grass Tech applicators I bought on eBay for $29.
You can get perfectly acceptable results just using turf products without the need for the more expensive static grass material and applicator. I think static grass looks very nice, but I’m perfectly happy with the scenery I did before I tried static grass. This is a “flock and turf” scene:
Where is the best place to get the static grass and what will a container cover as far as area? Thanks for all the help!
Scenic Express handles distribution for Silflor in the United States. My LHS ordered it for me. That way I got a shop discount and I didn’t pay for shipping, although I had to pay sales tax. The same LHS stocks WS, so I bought it there. I now have six packages of static grass, two each in 2, 4 and 6 mm lengths, in a variety of green and brown colors. Using a number of different colors of grass, just like with turf or even trees, gives a more realistic look.
I’ve seen some static grass at shows, but not much.
I try to support my LHS as much as possible, so I don’t necessarily look for the best price.
Just remember that in HO scale, 2mm grass works out to nearly 7 inches tall.
That’s deep almost enough to annoy neighbors and enough to rile up many homeowners’ associations…
When you do deep grass in the wilds, you’ll get the most realistic results using a mixture of lengths and similar colors, like MisterBeasley does.
My favorite results using static grass came from applying the grass to wet brown house paint. The grass stood up nice and straight.
To the OP, Just based on your question you sound new to landscaping. Thats not a bad thing. May I suggest a Landscape Learning Kit form Woodland Scenics. The kit includes everything you need to do a 2 ft x 2ft area and will take you step by step. You can add static grass later if you want to.
http://woodlandscenics.woodlandscenics.com/show/Item/LK954/page/1
Derek
Someone could give you a link to Walther’s Static grass page{s}:
The applicator is a bit expensive:
http://www.walthers.com/exec/productinfo/272-180691
Hence the reason some make one per Utube videos like the one BATMAN shows made form an electric flyswatter. Do a search and you will find explicit instructions to make a cheapy form the electric flyswatter. it can be had here:
http://www.harborfreight.com/catalogsearch/result?q=fly+swatter
GOod luck!
[8-|]
Another method you can try is to paint fine-fibre cleaning cloths to your desired colur and use small pieces and tufts of it. The cloths are cheap, and always brightly coloured. Leave the fibres long or snip them short.
The fibres will get clogged as the paint dries, so once it’s dry you use a wire pet-grooming brush to fluff it up again. Pastels can be used over the paint as well.
It’s a technique I learned right here on this forum and it has served me well.
Mike