Winter Effects

When a scene is covered in snow

A winter landscape has one treacherous property. A white area covers everything, but at the same time it wipes out shape, and badly made snow turns a carefully built diorama into a shapeless heap. What decides, therefore, is where snow does not belong: roofs are not covered all over with it, the edges stay dark and ruts are drawn out right down to the base.

What can be achieved

The material covers the range from a barely noticeable dusting to deep drifts piled up by a wall. Besides snow over an area, icicles hanging from a gutter, a sheet of ice on a pond and a continuous ice field are made from it. It is precisely the transition between a thick layer and a bare place that gives a scene its credibility.

Where snow lies and where it does not

The wind drives snow behind obstacles, so the windward side of a wall tends to be almost bare and the leeward side drifted over. Under a tree with a dense crown a dark circle stays. On a roadway snow turns into slush and at the shoulder into a dirty ridge. Anyone who thinks this out in advance saves themselves later scraping.

In color, snow is not purely white. In shadow it has a cast toward blue and near chimneys and roads it turns gray. A weak cast of blue in the hollows does more for the impression of frost than another layer of material.

Who it is for

The age advised from seven years up and the need for supervision with smaller children suggest that the work is manageable even for a beginner. A more experienced modeler will appreciate that the material can be combined with finished scenery without rebuilding it and that the result can be added to step by step.