real mud/dirt

have any of you guys/girls tried using real soil from your backyard watered down then brushed on if you water it down heavily it fills in panel lines and seams

or beach sand

the grit from the beach sand makes good scale mud

Take one single sand grain in your hand and at 1/35 scale, that sand grain is 35 times bigger than it should. You must find something 35 times smaller to represent that same grain at 1/35 scale!! Mud is easier to replicate with talc, putty or paint. Sand is good to simulate small rocks like for gravel roads.

Various geological material can and has been extensively used to simulate soil and mud. “Clay” is both a mineralogical term and a term for the finest particles in a soil. It is, indeed, approximately the size of some pigments. Washing dirt from your yard, letting the heavy stuff settle out, and pouring off the cloudy liquid is the best way to obtain it.

But before you do that, sterilize the dirt by baking it at 300°F for three hours—or you may have interesting things growing on your model.

Yes, that grain of sand is out of scale, but when mixed with white glue, water, some pigments and a little Woodland Scenics turf, it makes for a great clumping effect. I just finished applying a similar mixture on a 1/72 scale Jagdpanther and it turned out very well!

yeah but the growth adds a camoflage note to armor[;)]

… and the bugs eating it make nice looking goats eating grass!