The trash and recycling bins aren’t the only source for free terrain and basing materials. Nature provides a variety of bits to be used on your miniature and terrain projects.
I first saw pine bark being used as a basing material while watching James Wappel’s Twitch stream. He made a small diorama using pine bark as the base with sticks and twigs decorating the base for a miniature.
After seeing this idea I noticed a large fallen pine tree near my office and grabbed a handful of small pieces of bark and took them home. After a little research, I put them on a cookie sheet in the oven at 350 for about 30 minutes to kill bugs or other living organisms in the bark, and after they cool put them in a zip lock bag to store. I’ve actually seen a wide variety of advice on how to treat the bark, but since this didn’t start a fire in the oven, I think I’ll stick with it.
That night, though I was not specifically searching for ways to use the bark, I came across a video from Bard’s Craft where he used the bark as rock faces, cut it into blocks to serve as rough cut stone walls, and chopped and sifted the bark to use as different grades of sand and gravel.
So back to the tree I went to gather more bark, even going for a much larger piece this time. And to see how well it would work. I chopped up one of the smaller bits of bark I had already dried to see how it looked up close. Though I think I need to chop it a little finer to make gravel, after running the chopped bark through a sieve I had a very nice sandy textured material.
This material will definitely go into a number of future projects. Have you used pine bark in any of your projects? If so, how did you use it? Share your ideas in the comments below!