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Best Static Grass Applicator – Comparison Table
Transcription from youtube channel marklinofsweden “How to work with static grass applicator?”
Today we’re going to dive deep into the static grass. Yeah, it’s a product which has been on the market for a while. I think it’s really have revolutionized the way we can make a miniature of a real landscape and then it’s just not just doing this and it will of course be all green and all these fibers will stand up and it will look pretty, but you can take your creations further than that. I was talking to a friend and then it occurred to me that I am using five different characteristics in the prototype, which I’m looking at when I’m making a model of it and that is of course the color of the grass, which is very important. It’s the length. How long is it? Is it cut or is it wild grass?
The color blend for each tuft of grass or lawn or anything. It does not contain from just one color. It’s always a mix. So that’s a factor. It’s the density. How dense is the grass really? This will have a huge effect on the ground covering we’re putting in there, because if there’s a high density grass then the ground covering doesn’t matter. You can just paint your board brown and you will be fine.
Whilst if there’s more normal grass than you will see the ground through the grass and then it will have a huge effect on the total appearance. And this last one is the stroke, the brush size and the stroke. That is not controlled by the grass or the applicator, but with how you apply the glue. So we’re going to go through this. We’ve got to start with some sample boards and I’m starting off with my own lawn.
Which static grass applicator do I use?
First of all, I like to fill my glue into these. But before that, let’s sort out the color and color mixes available. I typically use my static grass from NOCH. NOCH has a full assortment of grass ranging from brown, golden yellow, dark green, middle green to bright green.
Each color is available in two and a half millimeter, six, and 12 millimeter long grass. Now all of these base colors really contains from mixes of different colored fibers to give a natural look. This year NOCH has launched a really interesting variant of these grass fibers. They are muted or matte. This pile here, closest to the camera, is the new dark green muted color. These fibers are really the next level in terms of realistic result. NOCH also provides something they called master mixes. The master mixes focuses on the application. This for instance is meadow. Other mixes are summer or Alpine meadow, or cow pasture.
Okay, let’s get started. This is my miserable lawn. I would say color is bright green, density 30 to 50% with tufts. I always start by painting the ground brown. I use 8440, which is a brown scatter material to add some texture to the ground. I’m fixing this using the grass glue 61131, and I more or less cover the entire area with grass glue while the scatter material is applied randomly.
I then stipple with wide brush so the scatter material gets stuck in the glue. First layer of grass is the 8324, which is a golden yellow two and a half millimeter dead grass. This will just lay down, so I just apply it using the fingertips. Then I push it in to the glue using the same stippling method. All right.
Which color do I prefer?
The best color and length match for my lawn is the 8312 scatter grass meadow. I’m filling my static grass applicator with this, stipple on some grass glue, not over the entire plate, but most of it. Since the fibers are rather short and since I want to control the density of the fibers, I’m selecting the fine sieve. Switch the applicator on, and then start applying my 30 to 50% density lawn. Something like this. Yeah, I think we’re done now. Now the yellow dead grass is showing through as well as bit of the ground texture.
My neighbors, they are far more serious about their lawn than I am. Color is a bright green and density is about 80 to 100%. with this level of density. We do not need anything else but the Brown paint on the plywood. Then we’re just applying as much static fibers we can into the glue and we should be more or less done just with this one step process. Yeah. Great. I want my lawn to look like this as well. Next year.
This is the forest edge in June and here we have almost just tufts and very low coverage of grass. I then start covering the entire plywood using beach sand and then again this texture, the scatter material brown. The layer of 2.5 millimeter golden yellow grass is covering more or less the entire plate.
For the actual grass layer, I apply the grass glue in spots and then use six millimeter bright green grass. This is the result. A bit further into the forest, I found this meadow. As you see here, it’s not just only grass but also leaves. The grass is arranged mainly in tufts, so I made basically the same plate but I used also a 12 millimeter grass.
With a tiny amount of glue on the brush, we will be able to add the leaves. These are middle green leaves. So here goes the glue. And then we sprinkle on some leaves, also arranged in tufts to follow the pattern or the rests of the vegetation.
Let’s try something completely different now. This is a field of red rice in Japan. As you see here. The tuft contains from three colors, golden yellow, green and red, and the tufts are arranged in straight lines. We’re starting this off by making spots of grass glue arranged in straight lines. Then let the glue dry for a few minutes. I’m filling the static grass applicator with 8324, which is the golden yellow 2.5 millimeter grass. The second layer is a six millimeter bright green grass. As you see, all of the grass straws are not standing straight up. I should have left the glue to cure a bit longer, but there is a quick fix. The airflow from a vacuum cleaner. I also then added a 12 millimeter bright green layer and left this plate to hang upside down.
The red tips of these rice bushes will be made with 7086 which is field grass ochre brown. I’m applying a static grass glue to the top part of the straws, and then I just sprinkle on that ochre colored grass on top and shake excess grass off. All right, here it is. On the last sample board for today we will make a grass both with leave sound yellow flowers. I’ve prepared a sample plate in the same way as my lawn, meaning brown base color, 8440 scatter material, and then 2.5 golden yellow grass.
Here I’m adding the grass glue for the final layer of six millimeter bright green grass. I’m dry brushing on grass glue on the tops, adding the flowers. These type of flowers typically comes with the house kits in plastic when you buy them. On the middle of the grass though, I add another layer of grass glue and then just sprinkle on some NOCH leaves. These are middle green leaves and it will end up looking like this.
All right, so far so good. I have this friend. He’s building a huge model railroad. It’s in excess of 20 square meters. So my railroad here is tiny compared to his, and he always says that, “Oh man, you and you guys on YouTube making or these fancy dioramas, they look awesome. But if I spent one month doing this I can make it fancy as well. But please show me methods that are applicable to me. I’m building a model railroad and I want to complete it before I die.” So now we’ve got to do the test on this static grass. We’re going to apply four layers static grass and see how long time it takes to make a square meter.
The base in this a corner module of my model railroad is made from plywood and the structure is made from NOCH foil. Otherwise I prepared it exactly like the sample plates except I’ve added also a brown wash, which you can see as the darker areas. And here’s our prototype. It’s three layers of grass and leaves. I went for the grass glue XL, extra large, 61131. Since we’re building something big like does. And I apply the grass like on the sample plates in spots or streaks, areas like this.
I apply the golden yellow 2.5 millimeter scatter grass and push it into the glue using stippling. This layer took eight minutes to complete. The next layer will be a 2.5 millimeter meadow grass. I’m applying the static grass glue in the same manner but a bit more on the elevated areas than on the lower grounds.
Then apply the grass itself in the glued areas. This layer took 12 minutes to complete. Now for the next one, this will be a six millimeter bright green grass. I blended in also some golden yellow six millimeter grass into the mix to get it a bit more faded towards beige. Once the glue has dried I again dry brush on static grass glue on the tops of the grass and then I sprinkle on NOCH leaves. I use the middle green in the front of this diorama and the dork green in the rear parts.
This layer with the leaves took 14 minutes to make. The last layer we’re doing on this grass field is a six millimeter golden yellow grass, and I apply that in streaks areas and in tufts, and apply at the grass itself using the grass applicator. All in all, this took 56 minutes to make, excluding the drying time for the glue.
How To Make Your Static Grass Applicator?
I could make another tutorial, but Luke Towan is the best in dioramas and making special tools for them.
