Scatter materials are the loose ground that tracks, gravel yards, railway ballast and bare earth are made from. There is stone ballast in three grades, from the finest 0.1 to 0.6 mm through 0.5 to 1.0 mm up to a coarse 1.0 to 2.0 mm, in grey, black, brown, red-brown and sand, plus earth scatters in brown and green shades, decorative sand, grey mulch and flowering meadow scatter.
How to pick a grade and how to fix the material down without moving it is explained below.
Loose scatter is the quickest way to get genuine irregularity onto a diorama. A texture paste dries with the surface the modeller decided on, whereas poured stone lies as it fell - and that randomness is what convinces the eye. Earth scatters make the surfaces, stone ballast makes tracks, yards and railway formation, decorative sand and mulch handle transitions and drifts. All of them can be scattered over one another and mixed, so five bags yield dozens of ground shades.
A grain one millimetre across is a fist-sized stone in 1:35 and a lump of rock in 1:72. For small scales choose the 0.1 to 0.6 mm grade, for 1:35 the 0.5 to 1.0 mm, and keep the coarse 1.0 to 2.0 mm for large stones, revetments and spoil. Grain size matters more here than colour, because colour can be corrected with a glaze while a stone that is too big cannot be fixed at all.
A real track has no single colour. Mix two or three shades in unequal proportions and scatter them unevenly - a lighter worn strip up the middle, a darker drift at the edges. Scattering from a low height through a tea strainer also gives a finer spread than scattering from your hand.
Scatter dry, level it with a brush, and only then flood it. Use PVA thinned with water and a drop of detergent, dropped in from a pipette around the edges so it soaks under the layer from below. Pour glue straight onto the stone and you shift the whole area and end up with lumps.
Once the surface is fixed and dry, vacuum off the surplus and only then start painting. A glaze on loose grain simply moves it, while on a bonded surface it does exactly what it should - and the scene is ready for greenery from the scenic accessories range.
