Materials

• Fimo
• Card
• PVA
• Basing materials (Sand or Flock)

TIP
Stick the Fimo to the side of a hot mug of tea to soften it up a bit before kneading.

Modelling

Make base
First cut the base out of thin card. This should be about 8mm across and 50mm or so long.

Glue on first row
Next, take some Fimo and knead it until soft. Roll out a sausage about 4mm in diameter and glue this to the top of the card with a line of PVA. Leave for about half an hour until the glue is set.

Cut grooves
Now take a knife and cut grooves into the Fimo to make the individual bags. Push the blade in vertically, and then wiggle it to open up a V shaped cut in the Fimo.

Now take another sausage of Fimo and lay it on top. This should be slightly longer than the one underneath. Cut the ends of the top sausage off to the right length, taking care not to damage the Fimo on the layer below. (If you use a sausage of Fimo that is the right length, the ends will be lumpy and misshapen). Now cut grooves as before, before going on to the next layer. Repeat until the sandbags are complete. Then bake the Fimo in the oven or cook it under a desklamp.

Add more layers
Care should be taken when adding new layers as it is easy to squash the layers below. Beyond four or five layers it becomes difficult to add more without damaging those already done. If you want particularly high sandbag walls then it would be best to bake the first set and then build more on top.

Apply texture to base
Once the sandbags are hard, you can apply your standard basing technique to the card.

Painting

Base coat the bags with a darkish khaki. I use Humbrol Acrylic Dark Earth (5802).
Wash lightly with a very dark brown.
Drybrush with the base colour
Drybrush with the base colour mixed 50/50 with a cream colour.
Drybrush with the cream colour.

Note that although the colours in the photo appear much greyer and less saturated than those in the palette above, this is an effect of the drybrushing technique, and not a result of poor colour matching.