Dead weeds

After getting the foundation for the engine facility pretty much finished up I went back to making some weeds, this time I wanted some dead and brown weeds to spark a little contrast with the grass that I covered the yard with.

I looked online for for brown static grass and only found a few places that had it, none of which really had what I thought looked like dead weeds.  On top of that, what I did find one came from the UK and wanted $15 to ship a couple of bags to this side of the pond, the other was stateside, but the shipping was still about the same.

Not long ago I remembered watching a video where a guy was placing some grass tufts and as he peeled them off the paper it looked like he had sprayed them with brown paint?  Sure enough, I went back and watched his video again and he used Vallejo.  I didn't have any of that but I did have some TruColor browns.

The other thing I didn't have was some 4mm & 7mm Yellow Straw grass until it arrived in the mailbox today.  So I figured I'd try painting some Light Green grass that I had on hand until the Yellow Straw arrived.

I started by applying dots of Elmer's glue full strength to some parchment paper.  Then grabbed the three brown TCP colors I had on hand.

The Paint bottles line up with the painted weed tufts.  The Dirt and Mud are Matte and the Lt Brown Stucco is Gloss, so I shot a coat of Dull Coat over them all.

Later after the my Yellow grass arrived I quickly made four sets of tufts and set them aside to dry. This time I only used the Mud & Dirt and sprayed two sheets each.

 

I think these will look good and will definitely be cheaper to produce, I just hope I can get them to release of the parchment paper.  The first time I tried making tufts, they stuck so tight that it ripped the paper.  At that time I used Mod Podge Flat, so I'm hoping Elmer's isn't as tenacious?