And we're ready for painting!

Good evening, or early morning my friends (3 AM here 😆) the base is ready for some paints! I'll paint everything with an airbrush first and then hit it all again with enamels and stuff like that, matching the road with mud tones on the Sherman. Basically the same way like on the Syrian base. 

You'll find another photo of my bench at the end of this gallery. Is it messy enough now? 😄

When I was applying the grass, I really wished I had that static grass applicator! Because right after brushing some white glue on the ground and sprinkling it with grass I thought "oh shit, this is gonna be bad" because it looked seriously atrocious 😂But then I added another layer of longer grass, also some sea ball, and I just basically played around with it, this time fixing it with gravel and sand fixer. I also made the "transition" between grass and the road smoother by sprinkling more loose grass and real dirt. Some trampled grass is also in the middle of the road, but here I covered it with diluted Textured Earth. I also added a piece of root behind the fence as a random broken branch to make it at least a little more interesting because there's seriously nothing I could think of. 

I mean, it's not excellent, but it isn't that bad either! Best of all, it's glued firmly in place, a lot of strands are actually standing upright by some miracle, so it should be easy enough to paint it with an airbrush, fingers crossed. There's actually not that much stuff to paint, basically just the road, grass and fence. So it could be, theoretically, done pretty fast! But we already know well enough how these predictions of mine usually go 😁

When you look at it as a whole, it's nothing mind-blowing, no eye-catching details or dramatic terrain... the Syrian base was much more exciting in this regard... so, do I feel like the base is uninspired? Not really... I mean, sometimes a base can be just a base and nothing more... this is actually one of the reasons I didn't do bases in the past, because a base without an idea would just make the model less exciting. However I'm ready to experiment, find out if it's true, and also figure out how to make even a simple piece of terrain worth the time and effort. And of course it's a lot of fun and a nice break from armor techniques, so I don't see it as a waste of time at all! 

Also, I started thinking about purchasing a hot wire foam cutting board. Not just the small handheld one, but an actual table that can cut nice straight lines, different angles, even circles. Cutting foam on the table saw is a huge pain in my ass, the sides are never smooth and sometimes they even get damaged (you can see a small kink on one side behind the longer fence). It costs around 100$, but I'm still not sure if the purchase would be justified... but considering how much fun bases are, and I plan on making more in the future, not for every single model mind you, I think it would? What are your thoughts? 

Also also, I couldn't not mention this, but I was literally (LITERALLY) blown away by the incredible amount of support and nice messages from you today. I spent a good portion of the day getting in touch with all of you, and I must thank you again for all the nice words of encouragement, it seriously made my day and I feel way more relaxed and confident. Also, a lot of new people joined today, and I mean a lot, so a big thanks to you as well, I appreciate it a lot, welcome and I hope you'll enjoy your stay!