Death Korps of Krieg Baby Project: how to make sandbags

For my baby Krieg Project, a 60 mm base with a trench-like structure and a couple of guys, I wanted to add some sandbags. I had one set from GW but they looked unrealistic. Instead I went to the Forge World Modeling book and followed the instructions there to make my own. Not everyone has that book so I figured I replicate the process here at SCWH. It's easy!

First make a long roll of greenstuff
Flatten it with a metal knife. Make sure to wet the knife and the cutting mat
This is what it looks like
Now make cuts in about the size of the bag
Grab a piece of cloth and shape them a bit, squeeze to get the woven texture on the bags. The GW ones don't have any texture
While in the cloth, position them on your model. Make sure you model them realistly on top, letting parts hang over the edge etc.
There is a group done and put on
Make a think cut along the side where the seams are
And here it is done!
And the paintjob. I wanted to use a lot of muted, earthy tones that remind me of WWI. I kept the bags on the greener side, following the ForgeWorld book instructions for a wash of Scorched Brown, Brown and Yellow ink. Then I highlighted with Rotting Flesh
I am really happy with the result. The idea is to not make a playing model but a little diorama, in which the Mole Launcher and his mate fire one off into the enemy trenchbunker. Here are the two guys, ready for priming.

Hope this inpires!

Mike

Comments

  1. VERY inspiring.
    That sandbag trick will come in handy too (thanks for sharing!)

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  2. Really cool dude - I like the use of the cloth to give the texture.

    Nice one.

    Pom

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  3. Brilliant sand bags, your step by step photographs are really well done too.

    Only suggestion I would make is that you always have one bag which has split open. Seeing sand spilling out of a bag help the mind of the observer to conclude that the rest of the bags are full of sand too.

    Awesome paint scheme by the way.

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  4. That's cool. I wanted to use that technique to do sandbags for a gun emplacement.

    One question I had though was how big do you make them (WxHxD) so they look in scale besides 30mm figs?

    GDMNW, I like the idea of a split bag.

    Simon

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  5. Simon, in the first picture you see a gw bag right above it, I put it in the picture for scale comparison
    Thanks to all of you for the supporting comments
    Mike
    SCWH

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  6. Thanks for the info, but I do not have any of the GW sandbags so that did not help...

    I noticed that the grid on your cutting mat is 1/2", so that makes your sandbags roughly 3/8" x 5/8" or 8mm x 15mm. I'll try with these dimensions and see how it looks.

    Thanks again.

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