If you do any kind of terrain building, for tabletop gaming, model trains, diorama-making, or scale modeling, you’re likely familiar with pigment powers. These are colored, powdered chalks that are sold by major hobby supply companies to be used in weathering terrain and models. They’re great, but also expensive at as much as $10/ounce.

But you don’t have to spend that at all. Using a mortar and pestle (or a hobby knife), you can grind up a set of cheap art chalks. They work exactly as well as the commercial chalks and you have a much wider range of colors available.

In this Black Magic Craft video, Jeremy shows just how easy this is.

The same is true for weathering pencils that are new to the market ($8 for 5 pencils). For a few more bucks, you can get an art pencil set and use them in the same way. Here’s a Frostgrave miniature that I did weathering and edge-highlighting on using cheap art pencils.