Jungle Basing tips?

[RedsandRoyals]

Hey all,

I've started collecting a few armies for 'Nam, which is a 15mm wargame by the people who make Flames of War that focuses on, well, Vietnam. This has pushed my pretty far out of my comfort zone with generic, vaguely European style basing, and I was hoping for some guidance on the following if anyone had tips or ran across good tutorials.

• Making tall grass, ideally something that comes up to the knee of a Guardsman mini (which would be about shoulder height on a 15mm mini). Just piling loose grass basing stuff looks a bit weird.
  
• Any recommendations for loose foliage you add to bases that I could use for jungle floor detritus
  
• Any good materials for making red, rusty dust effects

Any help would be appreciated!

[nutty]

I've used tea as leafy detritus on bases before, it works pretty well. I mixed mine with some woodglue, paint, and some plasterpowder. But imagine some dried spices could work just as well.

A few months ago I bought a bunch of plastic plants to cut up to make terrain for a D&D campaign set in a jungle (and I'll base my catachans to match once I get around to them) so I'm looking forward to what you come up with.

[treadiculous]

Have a look around an aquarium / reptile shop - there's loads of decorative plants, and while they may be a bit huge you might be able to trim bits off them.

I've also seen some paper plants being used quite effectivly, there's a company that produces them though I can't recall its name.

I'd also have a look round the garden / nearby woodland for moss / lichen and see if there's anything that is viable.

With the basing grass were you using the 'static' approach to get the grass to stand up?

Hope this helps!