I blended the shrubbery with the bases, on the larger pieces covered the aluminium foil, with a mixture of gesso primer and tile grout.
As there are some tight spaces between the plants, I wanted to apply a base brown layer first, but don't have any suitable airbrushable brown available. Didn't want to bother making an acrylic paint thin enough. So I choose the best one available, a dark red from Molotow.
The sweetgum seed pods were then given a coat of Molotow white through the airbrush, to make the inks to be applied next pop. As the airbrush did not reach all the tight nooks and crannies, the natural brown provided an adequate shadow color.
Then I applied different shades of ink, applying a 3 color gradient to each plant.
Projekt already mostly done :-)
Now I only need to take care of the bases.