Spanish MOSS

Spanish Moss: vegetation for a diorama from AMMO of Mig Jimenez

This is a scenic accessory from the vegetation group, neither a kit nor a paint. It serves to stop the scene around a model or a figure being a bare board and to make it start looking like a piece of landscape. You shape the vegetation yourself, break it down to the coarseness you need and plant it in the terrain. Check the contents of the package, how far it goes and the dimensions on the package.

Shaping and planting into a scene

Vegetation is worked patiently and in small portions. The best result comes from working from coarse to fine: first the volume of the growth is laid in, then the detail is added where the eye looks. Before planting it, always try simply laying the vegetation in place and look at it from a distance at the viewer's eye level; only then glue it.

• Tear small tufts off and loosen them between your fingers, so that the growth does not look like a pressed clump.
• Fix it with thin PVA glue; on small hanging details a small drop of super glue works well.
• Layer it: a coarser lower layer, a finer upper one. That creates the depth that one even layer never gives.
• Tie the growth in with the rest of the scene in color with a light overspray or with pigments; a uniform tone looks artificial.
• Leave bare patches too. A continuous carpet of growth is the most common mistake that flattens a scene.
• Respect the scale of the model - too coarse a texture enlarges the whole scene and makes the model next to it look smaller.

Who the accessory is for

Builders of dioramas and vignettes, figure painters dealing with a base and modelers who want to set a model in a setting instead of on a bare plinth will all appreciate it. The accessory belongs to a color-named range of vegetation that comes in several variants - growth made up of two or three tones always looks more convincing than a single-color one.

Store dry and out of the reach of children. Work in a ventilated area when gluing and painting. Take the data on the contents of the package and on working it from the manufacturer's information on the package.