The Small Bang Theory

Who doesn't like a nice model of an explosion? I certainly do, but I rather lacked anything of the kind in my collection. Small blobs of cotton wool look less than appealing for anything but a smoke barrage, so I made a set of shell bursts for gaming.

Mahdist warriors find themselves in the middle of a bombardment worthy of the Western Front.

I made them using an amalgam of Spackle filler, PVA, black craft paint and used dried tea leaves. Mix the PVA and filler at roughly 50-50 ratio, add a blob of black paint and a drop of water, work the tea leaves into the mess until it turns clumpy. Set aside and allow to dry (which didn't take long in this heat). Once dry, glue clumps of the material together using a smidge more PVA, forming the distinctive arbitrary shapes of shell bursts. Once dry, glue to a base of choice and touch up with more paint if needed. I let some of the natural tea brown colour show since it looks like clods of pulverised earth thrown up by the explosion. Work up ground cover to suit your terrain. Repeat if desired.

They work nicely for most scales. In 1/300 they're a sizable shell burst. In N-scale/10mm they make a small shell burst or a mortar bomb explosion. 

Those rotters of the BUF find themselves in the middle of drastic landscape rearrangement.

I hope - with luck and a following wind - to game the Battle of Abu Hamad tomorrow. Fingers crossed...