 Hello everybody and welcome to another hobby-cheating video and today we're gonna talk about fairy gardens? I-I guess. Let's get into it. Uh, the strict techno-mancer that is Vinci V. Let us get to the technique and learn it Vinci V style. So recently, I was up in Amish country. Now, I live here in Ohio And there's quite a large Amish population. Trust me. This is all gonna connect to the hobby. Just stay with me. So, I was up there and my wife goes to these various little Amish country stores and things like that and in one of them they have a very large garden center and in that garden center they have a whole area dedicated to fairy gardens. Now, fairy gardens are this sort of thing that has become fairly popular to make these little, I guess for lack of a better term, dioramas for your garden and In these little sections of your garden stores and your craft stores and things like that There are all sorts of stuff that is available to us as miniature painters to make amazing bases So today we're going to talk about some of those things take a look at some of them And uh, we're going to see how we can use them in our own hobby As I already mentioned fairy gardens as a concept are basically just little dioramas meant to go sit outside And as a point of fact, you build them up using a lot of the same techniques and tactics We use when making bases or display boards or anything of the like and they very much resemble a traditional miniature diorama In fact, in many of these stores, there are little miniatures and little miniature houses and things like that for sale Now those types of things don't have as much use to us the miniatures tend to be very simple and they're, you know More cartoony they're meant generally more for just like a cute little thing to put in your garden But the rest of the components are highly useful When we start out, of course with our bases, we've got to start at the base the base of the base Sure, why not? Basically the ground cover and here you can find a rich supply What's amazing about these fairy gardens and the stores that offer all of these different materials for them is that they'll have lots and lots of different kinds of sand and rocks and grit And all that sort of stuff and this is an amazing place to start Every different type and scale and grit of sand or rock you want is available And I usually buy these things in multiple different bigger bags from very very finely ground Which will effectively be almost in scale sand Up to larger rocks, which again in scale would be about the size of your Your finger your fist, you know, kind of a rocky Wasteland ground, but you can go up and go bigger. They have smooth cobblestone rocks You know shards a sort of glass like substance which can be Perfect as different sized broken up rocks. I use these all the time On my bases just to add more Kind of verticality and visual space or if I want to have somebody doing a sweet teapose or whatever standing up on a rock But the the value of all these things is that you can get a lot of different material And one of the things I talk about all the time when you're making bases is that nature is very random And if we want to replicate that in our bases, then we need to have a lot of different random sized things It needs to be built up And so having both a fine grit up to a medium rock up to larger rocks Makes it feel much more natural and like the spaces we would encounter if we were actually out in the world In the real environment Another great advantage is that all of these things are cheap They're meant to be bought in bulk. These fairy gardens are usually Actually quite large That is to say they go in like a pot or something like that So as a result of that The materials that you need to buy for them are generally bought in pretty large supplies For us using them on bases. We use extremely teeny tiny little baby amounts of it So one simple bag for a few dollars will often last you years Maybe your entire hobby career much cheaper than buying similar sand or grit or rocks that are just rebranded from a Hobby store with some kind of You know miniature companies name on it where they've taken the same crap and rebranded rebranded it up and marked it up 10x No way i'm paying that amount of money for dirt and rocks The next thing that this also does beyond just the rocks the dirt and so on Is it also gives you a lot of other ground cover material So again things like branches or mosses or sticks or small bushes and twigs effectively all of these things are often integrated into The into the fairy gardens and so yet again here is an excellent place for us to draw on What I like about these materials is that ultimately you don't have to use them alone But they become a great source and quite versatile Whether you're building something that's meant to be the far You know sort of like a martian landscape of sci-fi or a fantasy countryside or town or village street It really doesn't matter whatever bases you're aiming for these things can be quite valuable and integrated into all those scenes So this versatility Is highly valuable of these materials when you combine that with the fact that they're not very expensive They let you make quite a wide range of bases that are very interesting and very different at a lower price point Enough talk. Let's go ahead and make a couple bases We're going to make simple bases something you could easily replicate across a whole army for fantasy or sci-fi and have a Look interesting using these tools And as I said the nice part about them is you're getting these big bags of all this different size grit and rock cheap So we're going to stick to the simple stuff today. We're going to start with a little fantasy base I laid down a little mixture of pva glue And uh and and water that's it and then what I'm going to do is just focus on sprinkling in all different sizes of grit of rocks So you can see how we have some medium some small and then I'll sprinkle in some very fine at the end to sort of cover Over the distance, but I have all these different size items on there Uh, just make sure you leave enough room for your figure to stand But I can then build on top of this it'll feel like very natural Wilderness ground. I could put flowers on top of it. I can make it muddy I can go so many different directions with this and it's so simple and easy and replicable Your paint job in the end on these can often determine the the real final outcome and the feel of the base So first one very simple just a nice rocky muddy ground And don't worry about the fact that these things are all different colors once we paint them They'll all be the same color or at least they'll all be the colors we want Now, let's build a little sci-fi base. So I started with just a little bit of cork I'm taking the tip of a brush cap and working it in here as a pipe because we're going to go for a little more sci-fi base With some toxic goop Spilling out nothing feels sci-fi like toxic goop and uh, but the strategy here is much the same Because I mean this is probably fairly obvious But whether you're in the future or the past on an alien world or earth You oftentimes wanted to picture figures on these sorts of rocky grounds rocky or muddy grounds with lots of different sized texture Nature seemingly no matter what planet you're on Still will have a variance of size of rocks and materials and things that you're walking on on the ground And so here again, we just integrate all of these together And you will see what both of these look like both primed and painted here in just a moment But once I've got all that down I can also still just move the kind of goopy mixture around So once I have the rocks into the goop I can reposition them straighten them out how I want You know just kind of paint if you will With this goopy rock mixture that lets me do things like fill in cracks And anything else that I don't like as well as move texture up on two areas where it should occur These are very simple each of these took me a minute or two They'd be very replicable overall army the magic and the key is just lots and lots of different size grit and rock And sand all stacked on top of each other to create that natural variance that nature has Here's a couple of the bases I made With these materials and you can see how we can both get something that feels a little more sci-fi Or a little more fantasy depending on the other elements we integrate if any at all A few simple pipes or something like that leaking toxic waste and all of a sudden you've got something feeling quite sci-fi Some grasses and flowers and a rocky hillside and all of a sudden you're feeling very fantasy But the same base materials went into the bases here in both cases So there you go. I hope this inspires you to go to your local garden store Or craft store or stuff like that and check out their fairy garden section and find a bunch of new and exciting materials That help you craft really unique interesting and dynamic bases for your miniatures and your armies If you liked this give it a like Subscribe for additional hobby cheating in the future. As always, thank you so much for watching this one If you want to support the channel, uh, you can do so through the link down below We have a patreon focused on review and feedback and taking your next step on your hobby journey Uh, but thank you for watching and as always We'll see you next time