Favourite Basing Techniques

[Arkhanist]

 

Beach sand needs to be baked, iirc. Set an oven to 300 and leave in for two hours. Don’t remember where I read that but it’s stuck with me for years.

 

Interesting, I never heard that. I never really had issues with my sand. I am guessing the heat "hardens" the grains or something. 

 

 

Kills the things living in it. Since you've had it a long time in presumably a sealed box, I suspect age has accomplished much the same thing!

[Disruptor_fe404]

Yeah, beach sand will be full of salt for a start, and plenty of fungus and bacteria live in it. To properly sterilise it for handling, conventionally you sift and rinse it to remove unwanted debris, etc and bake it at 150 degC (300F) for an hour. To get the salt out, you simmer it in a big pan to dissolve the salt in the water then use coffee filters to separate the water and sand again. Sand you buy normally comes from quarries I believe, and modelling/children's sand is sterilised for you.

Damn, I think I've been using beach sand wrong! Then again, it's been in the same container for over a decade... Hopefully that means I'm fine!

[MegaVolt87]

Well in OZ if you go to a national park that has a beach, its pretty remote and is very primeval nature and very clean. We Australians are lucky to be up there with the cleanest beaches in the world. 

[Droz_64]

I throw down some broken sprue to represent concrete/cinderblocks/wrecked bunker wall/etc, paint it gray, and then cover it all with one of the mud textures. Then, I run the mud paint up the models legs to make it look like it was slogging through a trench or something. Turns out really well, and is really easy to do.

[Brother Pheidias]

Depends on the model, army and what you need it for. For gaming armies, I use a sand-mix I inherited from someone, it's modelling sand obviously, and also glue down larger pieces. I use plaster, it breaks in satisfying shapes and is easy to customize, then it's usually complimented with a textured or crackle-paint and after painting, some nice tufts:

http://i.imgur.com/vCkEVJu.jpg

If it's something more elaborate, I'll add all sorts of different stuff, bits and textures.

[Disruptor_fe404]

Well in OZ if you go to a national park that has a beach, its pretty remote and is very primeval nature and very clean. We Australians are lucky to be up there with the cleanest beaches in the world. ^_^

I hear ya, mate! Mine came from my local beach, but the vast majority of NZ beaches are also pretty darn clean, all things considered.

[old git]

My current project (Primaris marines) are on ruined urban style bases. Materials include sand, grit. fish tank pebbles, plastic tubing and girders and cork sheet of various thickness. TBH these are more involved than my usual efforts which is normally just sand and then painted in whatever colours I want that particular scheme to be (desert, earth etc).

[Lord Raven 19]

GW texture paint/sand/artist's sand texture, base (GW texture excluded), shade, drybrush

[golfdeltafoxtrot]

My army and Kill Teams are mostly set in an urban environment so I've done their bases as tarmac with road markings:

Cork board stuck to the base and trimmed, primed with Army Painter Matt Black, drybrushed with Eshin Grey > Dawnstone > Celestra Grey > Ulthuan Grey, then road markings applied with Averland Sunset.

My Inquisition cadre are boarding an Imperial Navy vessel so I bought some deckplate style bases from Gladius Game Arts:

Primed Army Painter Matt Black, heavy drybrush Leadbelcher, details picked out with Brass Scorpion, wash everything with Nuln Oil and Agrax Earthshade, drybrush all over with Ironbreaker, rusty patches applied with Skrag Brown thinned with Lahmian Medium.

[Rob P]

My absolutely beginner/lazy basing is Astrogranite smothered in Eshin Grey and drybrushed with Tyrant Skull. it has a nice ash waste look.