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How to make good looking bases?


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There are a lot of very easy techniques to making nice bases. What theme did you have in mind? You really need that as a starting point for other people to help you. If you don't know what theme you'd like, scroll through the Army Commander or BnC Marines thread stickied at the top for ideas.

Alright, this is how I make my bases. No pics though, sorry.

 

I start off with a small chunk of blue-foam. Use white glue to glue it to the base, along with some gravel around the bottom of it. (Use white glur because plastic glue and super glue will melt the foam. I haven't tried any other glues though) After that is completely dry, make sure all of the gravel is stuck down real well. If not, you can try to paint some watered-down white glue overtop of the gravel to make sure it's good and stuck. At this point stick some other things on the base if you wish. Things like a raveged shoulder pad or helmet, discarded bolter or knife, or the head of a xenos if you wish.

 

Once that's all dry, I basecoat it all black. After the black is dry I give the gravel and the blue foam a liberal dry-brushing of grey. Then I give a light brown-ink wash. At this point you can paint the other details (discarded guns and such if you added them). Seems to look pretty decent. Once that's all done, I paint some goblin green on the part of the base without the gravel or the blue foam and then dump some sawdust on it. (Dye some sawdust green for best effect) The green paint will act like a glue and hold the sawdust down. Dump off the excess sawdust, blow some more off afterwards. Make sure no gravel or sawdust is on the outter rims to make the base look clean. I paint the rims black for my marines, but some prefer Green rims.

 

If you want to see how this looks I'll grab a couple pics. I have a few bases done for some WIP minis.

 

MAGGOT

 

[EDIT] Forgot to mention, I use the blue-foam to look like a rock of somesort. :lol:

There are plenty of tutorials in the + Liber Faber +.

 

Amongst others:

Urban bases by Blitz

Imperial Tile by Kraegus

Snowbases by Stripedog262

Cobblestones by Kraegus

 

These are also quite good (found on Brushthralls.com):

Basics of bases

Back to bases - pt 1

Back to bases - pt 2 From the Ground up Slate bases

Water bases

 

 

 

What kind of bases did you have in mind?

 

For a 'basic' base, cover your base in thinned carpenter's glue, and dip it in your favourite flocking material. You can paint it if you want to. I prefer using sand (the GW stuff, mixed sizes), which I then soak in Brown Ink (once the glue has dried). After the ink is dry, I drybrush with 50/50 Snakebite Leather/Fortress Grey.

 

You can leave it pretty much as it is for a dirt base, however, I pick out the larger pebbles with Codex Grey, then Fortress Grey and a final highlight with Skull White.

 

I then add some moss for a bit of color. I glue on ground foam (again with the carpenter's glue), and once that glue is dried, I soak the ground foam with plastic cement. Once that has dried you get a very solid piece of moss, ideal for painting and drybrushing. I use Catachan Green for a basecoat and Camo Green for highlighting.

 

If you want even more details, try adding some larger stones, pieces of cork or twigs to your base to represent rocks, boulders and tree stumps. Plastic aquarium plants make great jungle plants, and there are a lot of companies that make brass etched or resin details to add to your base.

 

Here are a few of my bases:

 

A 'basic' base painted in desert colors:

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v291/Obliterator/Chaos/DSC00915.jpg

 

A 'basic' base with some moss:

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v291/Obliterator/Inquisition/DSC01095.jpg

 

Same, but with some static grass added:

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v291/Obliterator/Inquisition/DSC00911.jpg

 

With some larger stones:

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v291/Obliterator/Inquisition/19bd3fd6.jpg

 

Or with a twig:

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v291/Obliterator/Inquisition/08334e17.jpghttp://img.photobucket.com/albums/v291/Obliterator/Inquisition/3e71e901.jpg

 

With some plastic jungle plants:

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v291/Obliterator/Imperial%20Fists/DSC01174.jpg

 

With some rocks made out of cork tiles:

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v291/Obliterator/Imperial%20Fists/DSC00635.jpg

 

A WIP base with some plastic and resin details:

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v291/Obliterator/WIP/DSC00603.jpg

 

And a home-made forrest base, with twigs as tree stumps, green stuff mushrooms and wire-and-sand cattails:

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v291/Obliterator/WIP/DSC01075.jpg

This is my standard M.O.:

 

1. Mix some sand and gravel into a cheap acrylic hobby paint and then I use a cheap, dollar-store brush to paint it onto the base.

 

2. While it's still wet, I sprinkle another layer of coloured aggregate onto the wet paint for some colour variation.

 

3. Once that's all dry I glue miscellaneous rubble or shubbery onto the base to finish it off.

 

I don't use static grass, mainly because I've tried before and it doesn't seem to work for me. :jaw:

 

For my typical, Outdoorsy, bases, I do a olive/jungle green paint and then add some brown gravel/sand to the base for the colour variance. Then I add pieces of shrubbery and a painted rock or two to the base.

 

Sorry I don't have any pics. (They are all eldar scum photos - I guess we could consider them as mug shots - ;) )

instead of threadomancing.. why not just PM the guy?

I don't consider it threadomancy when something useful is added to a thread, even if it was dead for a couple of months. It's the occasional 'This RoXxOrZ!!!!1!One!' in a thread from page 6854 that gets on my nerves :huh: ...

instead of threadomancing.. why not just PM the guy?

I don't consider it threadomancy when something useful is added to a thread, even if it was dead for a couple of months. It's the occasional 'This RoXxOrZ!!!!1!One!' in a thread from page 6854 that gets on my nerves :huh: ...

 

But this thread does RoXxOrZ!!!!1!One!

 

I want to see a step by step on how the base was done with the Mushrooms on it, I want to know how to make realistic looking bases like that.

 

Ooh, could this be added to the Librarium? Or at least Oblits part?

 

-Legacy40k

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v291/Obliterator/WIP/DSC01075.jpg

The mushrooms are all GS-ed on and end of wire. Just roll a small ball of GS, squeeze it open to reach the desired shape, and put it on a piece of wire. It's primed Chaos Black, and detailed with Snakebite Leather and Bubonic Brown.

The tree stump is a piece of wooden rod with GS roots. Basecoat Scorched Brown, then drybrush Codex Grey, and finally Rotting Flesh. For the pale wood basecoat Bestial Brown, then drybrush Bubonic Brown, and finally Bleached Bone.

The cattails were really difficult to model. Take a piece of wire, apply some glue to the upper part, and dip it in some fine sand. Done :huh: .

The rest are all standard materials: ground cover, sand and small stones.

whoopsies, my mistake, sorry about that, I could have swore the thread said it was started in 2005

dear oh dear.....

that's right, you can drum me right out of the paint corps for that... :P

 

@Oblit, fair enough, mind you, here I was thinking the thread was a year old...

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