Quick Dreadnought Base

I see a lot of cool bases on people's miniatures so I thought I'd give it a go. For my first attempt I am using the dreadnought base from the Black Reach set. I want to keep it pretty basic - just a simple textured base. The materials and tools are:

• plastic card
• sand (from Dollerama)
• xacto knife
• model glue
• white glue
• skull accessory (from Black Reach)
• scissors
• circle template (optional)
• scibing tool (optional)

Using the template, I found the appropriate size and drew this on my plastic card sheet. The template is handy but you could also trace around the base to draw a circle. I then cut the circle out using a pair of scissors. I wasn't too concerned about cutting a perfect circle. In fact I cut a bit inside the line to make the card slightly smaller than the base. Using the base from the Eldar war walker as reference I made rough, irregular cuts around the outer edge of the card.

Using the scribing tool (the back of an old #11 blade work well too) I gauged various cracks and fissures across the surface until I was happy with the look. To give the base a more 3-D effect I removed one large and several smaller sections and repositioned them so that they overlapped at the edges. I made sure to add nicks and cracks to these smaller pieces as well. Once I was happy with the arrangement I glued the card to the base with model glue. I added some debris using bits of left over plastic and some fine sand tacked down with white glue. I also added a skull from the Black Reach set and disguised the join with sand.

Once the glue had set I sprayed the whole thing with black primer. Painting consisted of a couple of thin coats of Codex Grey, followed by Kommando Khaki and highlighted with a mix of Kommando Khaki and Skull White. Where the original base is visible was painted Scorched Earth and highlighted with Graveyard Earth and Kommando Khaki. The skull was Scorched Earth, Graveyard Earth, Bleach Bone and Skull White.

Not including drying time, I must have spent less than an hour putting this together. Quick, easy and cheap.

GB