How to Make Miniature Sandbags // Beginner Friendly Terrain for Warhammer 40K, Necromunda, Kill Team

[@scubaguymi]

This is a perfectly-timed video. I've git a bag of air dry clay and also need sandbags for my WW2 terrain. Nicely done.

[@thecultofcrafting]

Great! Perfect timing! 😀

[@Jonny.Y]

Great video! Interesting point about the sandbag but actually you don’t turn sandbag seams away from gunfire necessarily. You consider where you would want sand to drop if it does burst. So trenches and walls, you actually have the seams facing out so it doesn’t come back into your trench, if it’s overhead protection then you have the seams facing in as you want to keep the sand on the roof. Just thought I’d add my ten cents (serving soldier who has used Sandbags a lot recently). Thanks for the video though! Looks really nice, I’m tempted to try my hand at it.

[@thecultofcrafting]

Ah, that makes sense! Thanks! :-) It's a fun little build, you should try it.

[@NotOnLand]

Something I've seen sculptors do is use microfiber cloth to get a more scale-accurate texture on fabric like that. Also it would be cool if you used a bit of baking powder to have some sand leaking out of the holes or seams in the bags.

[@thecultofcrafting]

Good idea. Thanks! :-)

[@gohstgaming8587]

Or you could use real sand

[@onalert413]

@@gohstgaming8587 Real sand would be too big for scale.

[@Sallivan4eg]

You can use thin plastic bag, or food plastic wrap to gently push over the lines through the plastic when you try to cut squares in bulk. Surface tension of the plastic will result in gradual thining and tapering towards the edges. "North of the border" channel used this trick in some of his sculptures.

[@thecultofcrafting]

Cool! Nice trick. I'll have to try that. :-)

[@janofe2232]

This is awesome. Thank you. Another material you may like to try in future is mixing milliput and green stuff together - you get a sort of best of both worlds material - not as brittle as milliput, but still a solid surface that doesn't flex like soft plastic. I've seen it used by lots of AoS28 and Inq28 kitbashers and converters.

[@thecultofcrafting]

Thanks for the tip! I think I should probably practise. Some people make amazing things with Green Stuff. :-)

[@Bluecho4]

The air-dry clay is probably best as a workhorse material for most uses. It's cheap, doesn't need tedious mixing, and sticks to itself with water rather than needing glue. It's probably also easier to find for those without ready access to hobby stores. I've bought air dry clay from dollar stores, which a person living in poorer or rural areas is more likely to have in close proximity. Obviously, sandbag barricades can be combined with other materials to add visual interest. Craft sticks/stirrers for wooden fencing, regular sticks (like, from the outdoors) for dead or damaged trees, piles of junk, heavy weapons (either incorporated into a heavy weapons team, or on its own; the actual weapon can be sourced from cheaper historical plastic kits), and even "casualty" models stacked against or on top of one another (again, sourced from spare bits or from historicals).

[@thecultofcrafting]

Well said. 👍

[@terminalvelocity3132]

For the twisted ends of your sand bags, I found jamming a 5mm piece of 1.5mm aluminium wire that I use for twisting up trees into the end of the bag and sliding the scroll/cone over the top gives it a little more resilience. Only just discovered your videos. Really enjoying them!

[@cell32005]

Fantastic video! I'm building a weird world war one table for Forbidden Psalm: Last War (and hopefully the upcomming Trench Crusade game by Pirinen and Franchina), so this is really very helpful, thank you for all the research!

[@oscarl.7856]

I use to make every single one by hand one at a time?! I can’t believe I never thought about your techniques! Glad to have found this

[@ednitram]

One of the best sandbag tutorials around.

[@thecultofcrafting]

Thank you very much! :-)

[@RealAntiguaDreams]

This is an incredible video! Extremely informative, as well as oddly cathartic. You have a relaxing voice and easy-going manner. You gained a new sub today. :)

[@thecultofcrafting]

Wow, thank you! That's very kind of you. 😊

[@eetennak966]

Always love your video. Smooth voice, pros and cons, video quality is great, really nice narration.

[@thecultofcrafting]

Thank you very much, that means a lot! 😊

[@alrethianscraftsbattles]

Very cool man 👍. They look great. What I do if I make many is just like you, roll a sausage, flatten them a bit...but then don't cut through them, give them a dent halfway with a sculpting tool and do that for all the bags. Then let them dry a bit and flip the sausage and repeat the process but this time cut completely through. Then you have the edges like real sandbags 😉 and it goes really fast (if you exclude the clay dry tiime) hope my explanation makes sense 😅

[@thecultofcrafting]

Good tip! I'll have to give that a go. :-)

[@alrethianscraftsbattles]

@@thecultofcraftingcool 👍. it makes it a lot faster 😉.

[@MikeJones-mj6qp]

Use foam to make the shape then just make sand bags for the outside wayyyy faster and u can make bags with one end tide shut...he does all this at the end lol

[@dell2man]

Awesome ways of creating sandbags. I'll have to try them myself. Thanks

[@thecultofcrafting]

Thanks! 😃 Have fun!

[@MagnumN117]

Very clever, love all the techniques here, they're genius!

[@thecultofcrafting]

Thanks so much! 😊

[@Escalotes]

Followed this tutorial today and it works amazing, thanks CoC!

[@thecultofcrafting]

Great to hear! 😃

[@willrodster]

Magnificent. You sir are a very patient man 😊

[@thecultofcrafting]

Thanks! 😊

[@noaccount4]

The masking tape clay method looks really useful for making sacks of potatoes or other good produce in miniature form

[@thecultofcrafting]

Hey, that's a pretty cool idea!

[@lynxedits1816]

the semicircle is good around an artillery pit!

[@DreamBigBuildSmall]

Great tutorial and useful information about the difference between the clays. Thanks for sharing

[@thecultofcrafting]

Thanks, I hope you find some use for i! 🙂

[@Ooolliek]

Oh man I love your videos, they’re really useful and really clear!

[@thecultofcrafting]

Thanks, that means a lot. 😊

[@michaelstarcher3104]

I used a piece of fiberglass mesh drywall tape to add a canvas texture to my bags. Unfortunately the same tape does not hold its shape well as cargo netting so thanks for the cheese cloth & PVA tip. Love the tutoruals keep them coming.

[@thecultofcrafting]

Thanks for all the comments, I really appreciate it! 😊 I can't remember if I mentioned it, but you can get cheesecloth in different mesh sizes, so you should be able to find one that looks right for your purpose. There's a list of grades and thread count in the wikipedia entry for cheesecloth, so you can get a sense which grade you want from there.

[@michaelstarcher3104]

@@thecultofcrafting Absolutely, I like to add comments to help boost creators content with the KZbin algorithm. Likes and subscribes help as well but comments show active engagement.

[@CampaignTerrain]

Wow. In depth. Noice. IMO, the line-only, with no stitching, looks best. None look out of place though. Well done

[@thecultofcrafting]

Thanks! I'm partial to the one with the stitching, because in reality the viewing distance is much longer than in the video. If I'm 1 m away from them, I can still see the stitching, while the seams are almost invisible. But then again, maybe I just didn't do a good enough job of painting them in! 😁

[@CampaignTerrain]

No worries, either way. They all look good. I dare say you've a lot more patience, than I

[@xommul79]

Thanks for sharing, some good ideas there, great to show success and failure.

[@philRminiatures]

Top notch sandbags, well done!

[@thecultofcrafting]

Thanks, I'm glad you like it. :-)

[@gohstgaming8587]

Thanks I made some for my warhammer gaming mat and they look awesome 👌, keep up the good work

[@jaimeshickman-hymers2499]

3:42 some modelers use a riveting wheel for the stiching (like the tracing wheel but with smaller teeth)

[@fistfulofcolours]

Great guide. I’ll be heading to Søstrene Grene tomorrow!

[@thecultofcrafting]

Cool, have fun! :-)

[@iPaintSmallThings]

Great video as always! I'll need to get some air drying clay. It seems so much easier to work with than greenstuff.

[@thecultofcrafting]

Thanks, man! :-) Yeah, it's better than I remembered. I prefer Milliput, though. :-)

[@auri1075]

If you put a tiny magnet inside them you could make them easy for changing shapes

[@racspartan1]

Well Done 👍

[@thecultofcrafting]

Thanks! 😁

[@logancrawford5379]

Actually for 5:20. The sand bags we use are almost exactly like the ones ya made. You can see stitching on sides easily.

[@user-nx5kk5ho7j]

Soooo much better than the ones I made . Lol. They were made out of fabric. Yeah. Sloooooooow process. 😂

[@keithkahler1327]

these fortifications could be used in conjunction with other buildings in your gaming set up, if you were going for street fighting as the battlefield

[@martinek193]

Great!! Thanks for the idea

[@thecultofcrafting]

Thanks! Happy to help! 😊

[@j3ffr0ck24]

Great video. Great work.

[@thecultofcrafting]

Thank you very much! :-)

[@jamesedwards8175]

Well, look at that. I just so happen to need to make a table of trench terrain!

[@thecultofcrafting]

Cool, perfect timing! :-D

[@thomasmuller8653]

Really great work 👌 Thanks for the Video 🤗

[@thecultofcrafting]

Thanks, that's very nice of you. Glad you like it! 😊

[@MarcusSpetim]

The Imperial Guard approves this

[@thecultofcrafting]

It's a good fit, certainly. 😁 I actually wanted to showcase it with some guardsmen, but I couldn't the ones I've painted.

[@mikeg5616]

Use a piece of tshirts to roll the clay in to get the texture.

[@lawtongore7053]

Why not make a mold for the different looking sandbags?? Just a suggestion... Good work 👍👍👍

[@neilkirkley1500]

Awesome video mate, subbed.

[@thecultofcrafting]

Thanks! Welcome aboard! 😀

[@boxfoxscoot1614]

You might be able to make a mold of the miliput sandbag and fill it with clay

[@thecultofcrafting]

Yeah, I think that'd be doable. 😊

[@user-gw1ky2dy6s]

👍

[@colonelburton8451]

They seem a little large for 28mm miniatures, no? I will certainly have to downsize them for Gaslands.

[@thecultofcrafting]

Not much in comparison with Warhammer 40K models, but the scale in that game is all over the place. 😁

[@colonelburton8451]

@@thecultofcrafting Are you talking about 40K or gaslands? Because in Gaslands, there literally is no scale. You can drive a matchbox 1/100 double-decker bus against a 1:32 motorbike, meaning the motorbike is as long as the bus.

[@soledude]

👏👏👏

[@Tinblitz]

9:00 I wonder if perhaps using some tissue paper would be better for this. It's less water resistant, and softer, so you could brush it with thinned PVA and add softer detail.

[@thecultofcrafting]

Yeah, I think a lot of materials would give better end result, but it's probably going to be very fiddly to make them. I was also thinking about coffee filters and tea bags, but I couldn't find a good way to close them up. The practical thing about masking tape is the adhesive. 🙂

[@Tinblitz]

@@thecultofcrafting If I was made of money, I'd say Green Stuff would be sticky enough to work with tissue/teabag/coffee filter, but that stuff ain't cheap.

[@thecultofcrafting]

@@Tinblitz He he, true. 🙂

[@OmniscientIce]

Idk if this has been suggested yet, but couldn't you make a single perfect sandbag with oven bake clay first. Then use bluestuff to make a mould of it, and now you have a sandbag making tool. Would save you having to shape each one individually.

[@thecultofcrafting]

It's a good thought 👍, but it probably wouldn't look right, because the bags wouldn't sag over eachother.

[@OmniscientIce]

@@thecultofcrafting unless I'm misunderstanding, after pressing the air dry clay to the default shape. You can still shape them as needed to make them sag etc. It just removes the step of pinching them into the proper sandbag shape after cutting them. Which seemed like the most time consuming part of the process. EDIT: you could also create 2-3+ slightly different sized templates if you want to get natural looking variations.

[@thecultofcrafting]

@@OmniscientIce Oh, like that. Sorry, I didn't get it. Yeah, that might work.

[@jasonadams4321]

Modeling clay is opposite of air dry clay. Modeling clay is oiled so it never dries, so it can be used over and over.

[@Morhgoz]

Nice video, subscribed to see more! Btw, I think ones with stiches look better...

[@thecultofcrafting]

Thanks! :-) I think I like those best too.

[@thejonathan130]

It's funny, I've never seen a cloth sand bag in my life. The bags we always used were always made out of that crappy tarp material.

[@thecultofcrafting]

Yeah, they're usually made from polypropylene nowadays, as far as I know, but in he past burlap was used too. I initially recorded something about that, but it was cut in the edit. Yes, I edited out quite a bit of ranting even though the video's still 18 minutes long. :-D

[@thejonathan130]

@@thecultofcrafting the burlap material is easier read. Kind of like a drawing of a house almost always has a chimney despite them not being really visible anymore.

[@XDragon_AttackX]

сделать силиконовую форму для мешков с песком и отлить из гипса сколько угодно мешков с песком. Мешки с песком.

[@MisterDantastic]

Nice video. Subbed

[@thecultofcrafting]

Awesome! Welcome aboard! 👍

[@kris220b]

*suddenly søsterne grene*

[@thecultofcrafting]

😁

[@kris220b]

@@thecultofcrafting been considering buying or making sandbags for the new imperial guard towed guns i bought and im glad i saw this vid, im going by an area tomorrow that has a søsterne grene anyways, so might buy a block of clay and get busy in the weekend

[@cromwellthesynth]

I do have to ask How hard are the clay ones to paint once they've been moulded and solidified? They look great but I'd want to paint them as proper dusty looking sandbag colours with some citadel paints.

[@thecultofcrafting]

They're easy enough to paint. If you want to do a nice paint job, just give them a spray prime and then paint them like you would a miniature. 🙂

[@MattyRlufc]

To make strips of sandbags which don't look like bricks, could you roll out the clay say 80%, mark and cut the strips, then squash them fully? Wouldn't that round out the edges and stop them looking really square?

[@thecultofcrafting]

Dunno, maybe. Give it a try and let me know. 😊

[@MattyRlufc]

@@thecultofcrafting thanks I will l. Love the look of your sandbag walls and I'll be following the guide but it looks v time consuming!

[@thecultofcrafting]

It is. 😁 It's one of those things where a audiobook or a movie running in the background helps. 😉

[@MattyRlufc]

@@thecultofcrafting according to my experiments, yes you can roll out a sausage and make a strip of sandbags by pushing down with a ruler some of the way, cutting with a retractable knife, and the squashing the rest of the way.

[@thecultofcrafting]

@@MattyRlufc Cool!

[@thespaniard1810]

Great video. Does the air drying clay need priming before painting with acrylics? If so what with? Thanks.

[@thecultofcrafting]

Thanks! I don't think so, but I did it anyway. The clay absorbs liquid quite fast, so things like washes dry out really fast. Because I wanted to have a bit more time to work with my washes, I chose to prime the clay with a regular spray paint first. But if you're you're going to paint them before adding washes, I don't think it'll make much difference whether you use a primer or any other type of paint.

[@tikiwiki7428]

when shaping with your hands how do you not leave finger prints on the clay or do you just hope no one will notice on the board?

[@thecultofcrafting]

Ah, I seared my fingerprints off when I first joined the 00 section of MI6 as a secret agent, you see? 🥸 No, it just didn't happen that much, to be honest. Most imperfections you can just rub away with a wet finger after the clay has had a few minutes to dry. 🙂

[@kikolokopo_toys]

Brent's secret channel????

[@thecultofcrafting]

🤫

[@lanefunai4714]

What if you painted white chiclets

[@thecultofcrafting]

They do look the part, don't they? 😃 I guess you'd get ants.

[@derekburge5294]

Have any tips or ideas for Battletech scale drop terrain?

[@thecultofcrafting]

No, unfortunately, I don't know the game. :-)

[@derekburge5294]

@@thecultofcrafting Surprising! It's the tabletop game that led to the MechWarrior video games. Big stompy robots.

[@thecultofcrafting]

@@derekburge5294 Well, I do like big stompy robots!

[@agustinacosta4419]

Que material utilizaste para hacer los sacos?

[@thecultofcrafting]

Arcilla seca al aire. Como arcilla de DAS. 🙂

[@brandonc2870]

This is useless for the death core of kreg they just use corpses

[@bobbobbinson1841]

Not trying to be rude but... Why do it this way anymore? you could just 3d print these for pennies.

[@thecultofcrafting]

Oh, that's a good question. It's because I enjoy the process. I like figuring out how to recreate something and figuring out different tools and materials work. I like working with my hands and the physicality of the things. Making models (or drawing, painting, etc.) also requires that you pay particular attention to details that you otherwise don't, which I also find quite rewarding. That being said, I don't enjoy making the same things over and over again, so if I needed a ton of the sandbag barriers, printing might be the way I'd go. 3D printing is a different hobby. I like it to some extent, but it doesn't have the same entertainment value for me. So I use it mostly for thing I can't make myself or things I find tedious. So, it's whether I'm doing it for the sake or doing it or I'm doing it to get the end product, I think.

[@thespaniard1810]

Not everyone has a 3D printer. For a small amount of bags this is ideal.

[@matthpotte]

Its a fair point but I bet with the cleanup and trying to fiddle around and glue bricks together, it would take the same amount of time. Printing the walls as one peice could be nice but may lose some of the character

[@bobbobbinson1841]

@@thecultofcrafting you all have good fair points. The only thing I disagree with is your statement that 3d printing is another hobby. To me it's just another tool for the hobby. The new resin printers are damn near push button operation. Love your work. The detail and uniqueness is very charming.

[@thecultofcrafting]

@@bobbobbinson1841 Ah yes, the technology has come a long way the last couple of year. My printer is an early generation Ender 3 FDM printer that needs constant fine-tuning. 🙂