Ok i decided to elaborate on my technique here. It works best on vehicles and boots.

What you will need
Brush/Q-tip
Small bowl
Pure sand (cant help with the origin, my dad had a bucket of it in the garage, should be a finer grain, not a bigger grain.)
Acryllic paint (your choice, white for snow, brown or brown/black combo for mud)

Get a good portion of paint in your bowl. After this ligthly pour a little sand in. You will see it kinda soaks up the color. Pour the sand in until the sand doesnt soak up the color. Once this is achieved, mix. The consistancy should be a little thick, but watery, good enough that it will glop, lighlty brush on.

Apply the mixture with brush/ q-tip lightly to the sides of the vehicles tires, the fenders, ect... Just try one spot at first. Once you see the results, you can decide on more or less.

For boots, well i havent tried it, but i suggest a little more watery of a mix.

While painting on the mud, stuff will drip off the brush. The process is messy, so do it some where liek a garage or out side.

Once you have achived the desired results, dull coat the whole mudded area. i used about 2-3 coats, the stuff is pretty rock hard.

I have used the snow technique on a diorama (sideways log) it worked well.

I used the following brands of paint/dull cote. Use what you like, as long as its acryllic, just incase. The last 2 are craft paints, they work pretty good, avaible at a hobby lobby or a michaels probally, not sure, its my moms stuff (was).

Testors Model Master Dull Cote
Anita's all purpose Acryllic Craft paint (black)
Americana Acryllic paint (light cinniamon)
I use the 2 previous paints, as the black was 8 fluid ounces, for only $2, the little thing is somthign liek 89 cents. Might not be Jo Sonya, but it gets the job done.

Hope this helps alot of you in your weathering.

Pictures are in the replies below (examples)


Here is the rest of the pictures of the finished jeep. (i fixed them after Cuda's post)

https://www.onesixthwarriors.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&postid=125583#post125583

http://www.joeworld-online.com/modules.php?name=coppermine&file=thumbnails&album=47

Got this message when trying to get to the finished jeep pics.

Invalid thread specified. If you followed a valid link, please notify the webmaster

jeep in progress

Use of technique for snow (on the log)

Great results. I've never tried it like that before. I'll try it . You may want to try the method I use: I use the Celluclay method and the results are incredible. Celluclay is kinda like paper mache only WAY better! Mix the Celluclay with a Tablespoon blob of Elmer's glue.........you can add paint if you want, I paint later. Stir up the mix when the texture is to you liking use a small spatula and just spread it like butter wherever you want it to go!! It's very easy to work with and cleans up with water!! After it dries you can paint and shade it however you like!!! Celluclay makes the most realistic ground texture on the market.

Realizing that necro-posts aren't too favored at times; my attempts at using this technique worked really well. Two things that modify this original recipe are - a combination of sand and corn starch as well as different drying times to achieve the desired outcome. Kudos to Ryan for posting this, he really helped me find my way with mud.
Sand and cornstarch - when mixing the original recipe I found that the cornstarch wasn't clumping well and didn't want to keep adding more and more so I added some GP sand. The sand really gave it the clump factor I was looking for and the cornstarch seemed to stiffen the mix up really well.
The original batch I slopped onto a POS motorcycle that came with some other stuff. About 15 minutes after applying it with a tooth brush I sprayed some matte onto it - it was still glossy/shiny. The end product came out looking like fresh mud vice dried and had a nice shiny tone to it.
The second batch I let dry on a boot and then sprayed it with the matte. The end result comes out as if the soldier in question had been slogging through the mud and then sat around eating or whatever and the mud dried in place.
We all know that there are times you need that "fresh" mud look and others where you need that "dried" look. This process has you covered for both.
Next step is to apply this to some of my real stuff.

Other photo