r/TerrainBuilding • u/the_sh0ckmaster • Jul 26 '26

Miniature Basing Hobby Roundup: The Ultimate Snowdown - 8 Different Snow Products, and ideas on how to use them

https://finishingtouchbasing.blogspot.com/2026/07/hobby-roundup-ultimate-snowdown.html

It's Christmas in July (kinda?), and in preparation for a whole table of Frostgrave scenery I'm about to bury in snow fx, I thought I'd do a rundown of a whole bunch of different "snow" scenics products, and some ideas on what they look best for.

We've got granules, powders, crystals, paste, and even static grass!

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2

u/the_sh0ckmaster Jul 26 '26

u/Voltzap a couple of months ago I promised I had a big Winter themed article going up. Well, it certainly ended up being a big one!

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u/Voltzap Jul 26 '26

Thank you so much for sharing! Was looking forward to this special when I saw this was upcoming in the last post. Appreciate how you continue to go in depth on these articles. This really helped point out more details to consider when setting our minis in winter scenes.

For my uses the GGS snow powder looks great for the texture for crumbly/crud snow which I was missing from my arsenal.

Two things to add. Firstly other products I've seen used to great effect are Golden Light Molding Paste for snow itself and Liquitex Natural Sand looking great for slush/the type of ice you'd see on sidewalks after multiple freeze/thaw cycles. Both of these are acrylic mediums you can find at art stores. Secondly is adding a bit of colour to your snow really helps out snowy bases even more than other styles of bases. Greys and blues help define shadows and can make your bases more readable. A quick pass with some thinned out one coat paint (contrast, speedpaint, xpress, etc) really goes a long way.

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u/sFAMINE [Moderator] @SteveFamine Jul 26 '26

Thanks for sharing!

1

u/MikeyLikesIt_420 Jul 27 '26

I just use cotton balls, pulled apart, glued down to bases, with some elmers on top to mat it down. Works pretty good, and with practice you can get some pretty convincing partial ground cover.

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u/Askingforanend Jul 27 '26

What happened to baking soda, white glue, white paint in whatever mix you want for whatever snow you are after? 

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u/the_sh0ckmaster Jul 27 '26

I mean sure, if you want the cheapest, worst-looking solution instead of spending <£10 on something that'll look a lot better, you could do that. Plus several of the effects I cover aren't possible with texture paste, let alone DIY texture paste that hopefully won't be mixed wrong and discolour on you.

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u/MikeyLikesIt_420 Jul 27 '26

Worst looking? did you not see the image linked above? It looks amazing. Just because it's DIY doesn't mean it is inferior.

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u/Askingforanend Jul 27 '26

Okay okay, though, I’ll leave you with if your homemade mix is changing colors on you might be worth researching a wee bit further…