Powder effects for dioramas - any brands that aren't so expensive?

Makeup powders or translucent powder from cheap brands like Maybelline or NYX work great for dioramas and cost a fraction of what specialty brands charge. You can also use ground chalk (white or colored), fine ash, or even talcum powder, which most of us have at home. If you need something more realistic for dirt or road dust, cheap eyeshadow powders from any cosmetics store give you a lot of tone variety without spending hardly anything.

Here's a tip that most people skip over: before you go crazy with makeup powders, pay close attention to the texture. Cheap translucent ones work, but some leave a really pasty or shiny finish if you apply them with your hand or a regular brush. What works better is using an airbrush or a really fine spray, almost like the ones people use to fix drawings. If you don't have that, try a soft makeup brush, but in thin layers. The problem is you apply too much at once and it looks fake right away.

Another thing: dirt powders or effect dust that they sell at construction or gardening stores sometimes cost less than any makeup brand. Light gray cement, brick dust, diatomaceous earth... it depends on the diorama, but lots of modelers use it. The downside is you need to mix it well with a fixative (can be cheap matte spray, like the modeling kind) because otherwise it lifts off with any movement.

The trick almost nobody mentions is making your own powders by mixing really fine pigment powder with talc or baking soda. It's ridiculously cheap if you do it right, but you'll spend some time experimenting. Anyway, if you're looking for something quick and reliable, pharmacy makeup powders work fine. Just remember to use a little and apply carefully.

What I do is mix makeup powders with a bit of water or setting spray to create a paste that you can apply more carefully, then let it dry - that way you avoid that clumpy effect that was mentioned above. I tried translucent powder from the drugstore (like the $2-3 ones) and it works perfectly to simulate dust, dried earth, or snow on miniatures without spending money on specialized products. The important thing is that you experiment with the ratio, because if you add too much setting spray it ends up shiny like it's varnished. Once I built a post-apocalyptic diorama and used cheap beige powder with a touch of water to make rubble, and it turned out with a pretty realistic texture.