using CORK for rock and ground work

It has been a while since I did a " tutorial " post as I have only been doing miniature painting for only a few months. I feel I am so inexperienced in this hobby to be writing any tip or tutorial post as of the moment. However I thought that a simple tip post could be helpful to some modelers that are not into miniature painting. Cork is sort of a standard material for basing in miniatures... but would also be great for other models like Gundams.

I did a lot of dioramas, vignettes and custom bases for my Gundams a while back, but never thought of using CORK to replicate scale rocks or mountain formations. I used to use a lot of real sand, real pebbles and tissue mache ( paper mache using tissue )... but I never ever used corks. I must admit they are so easy and cool to use and will be using them ( cork ) as materials for all my future bases and vignettes.

Kim ( admin @ Mininiature Gaming Philippines ) suggested using cork when I talked with him at a miniature model shop a while back. I then found a huge 1/4 inch think cork board lying in the house and have tried it on a couple of models. The two ( 2 ) models in this post is the first time I have used cork as rocks and ground work. Needless to say I am happy with the results.

Although cork ( specially cork board ) is far less durable than paper mache, real sand and pebbles... it does provide quick variation if used along side other basing materials. Just scrape the material to shape and let your painting do the work. Once painted, cork with real sand and some pebbles gives a diverse look to your ground work.

Much like the other materials... It is all about the painting. So have fun with cork and hope to see Gundam dioramas with cork in there groundwork. Til' next post guys!