Basic Basing

Basing is an easy way to add interest to your army. It can help unify you units thematically or just add a needed splash of colour. Basing is also a good excuse to let your imagination run wild and set your minis apart from anyone else's. The web is full of beautifully painted minis on elaborately designed bases. This can be somewhat intimidating but one needs to bear in mind that that level of detail is usually reserved for showcase figures, champions or elite units. For typical gaming figures you don't have to go too nuts.

When I started out I used to just paint the bases Goblin Green and be done with it. Then I moved up to simply spreading some white glue on the base and sprinkling it with green flock. Honestly - not a bad solution. What I've been doing lately is adding some interest to my base texture. I collected a variety of materials - decorative sWHFB, and and small pebbles from the craft section of the dollar store, fine sand and pebbles from the end of my driveway and other bits of debris like bits of drywall. The process then is pretty straight forward:

1. Coat the base with glue. I use slightly watered down Elmer's Wood Glue because it has a stronger bond but regular white glue will do too.


2. Sprinkle with mix of materials. I start with the larger bits and then sprinkle fine sand on top to fill in any gaps.


3. Tap off any loose material


4. Wipe the edges of the base with your finger if any of the glue went over the sides.


5. Repeat.

You can base an entire unit in no time.

The whole unit is then primed and painted - leaving the bases for last. The bases are given a coat of Scorched Earth, followed with a dry brush of Graveyard Earth and a final highlight of Deneb Stone. Once the highlighting is done, add some random splotches of white glue, dip the base in some Citadel Static Grass and tap of the excess.

As a final touch I paint the edges Jungle Green. This is personal preference, others like leaving the base black or go with other shades of green or brown. Now here's the completed unit:

GB

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