Advanced Base-ics

I've been working on improving my painting skills and they've come a very long way! I've noticed that a good, scenic base can really help with the look of a model and, to that end, I've been doing a lot of thinking about improved basing.

For standard basing, just put down some watered-down white glue (PVA for all of you across the pond) and then put down some green flock or some sand and you are done. This gets you quick results and looks alright, but if you have a really good quality paint job, it detracts from it by not being so bland.

So let's talk about jazzing up our bases. The easiest thing to do is to add some scenery to it. Some rocks or plantlife or little critters can be good, but what you pick depends on your theme.

The theme's the thing
If you've got a theme for your army, make sure that your bases support the theme as well. If you are doing an Egyptian-themed army, having it on green grass doesn't reinforce the theme, while having it on sand does. Follow your theme throughout and it will make it stronger and more flavorful. That theme will also help you come up with more ideas that are related to it. I'll cover a few different themes and related ideas below. As a quick note, the pictures below are of models that don't belong to me, as I'm still working on my improved bases. Hopefully you'll be able to see them soon, but I wanted to give you some examples to check out.

Basic Green Grass
This could be an Agri-world or a Jungle. If your army is Catachan Jungle Fighters, you've pretty much got your decision made up for you. An Agri-world would have mostly the basic green flock for the base. As for other things on the base, just put one or two so it doesn't get cluttered. A stone or two might work. Note that most stones will probably need to be dry-brushed to make them look more realistic (I know, it sounds funny, having to paint a rock to make it more rock-like, but the highlights and shadows that you would see on a stone of that scale just won't appear on this size of rock, so you have to accentuate them or paint them on yourself.) A small plant or some taller grass might also work well in this setting, just don't overdo it. If you cover the base in plants or tall grass, it'll look more like a jungle world, which brings me to the next part. A jungle world would have a lot more plants on the base and everything will be clumped together. There might still be a stone or two, but it will be mostly hidden by the jungle plants. This would also be a great place to use some creatures. What's a jungle without frogs and snakes and large insects? A couple of these partially hidden amongst the foliage is a great way to emphasize your theme and add depth to it. You can pick up some Jungle swarms or other nasties from several of the Games-Workshop lines (Lizardmen is probably the best one, but there are others.) You can also get some various insects and creatures from various toy stores and novelty shops. Remember the scale you are on, though. A 1/2 long cockroach would dominate the base and detract from the main model. One half that size would be very large to scale, but wouldn't overshadow your model. As far as plants go, a mix of long grass and leafy things is good for flavor. Water also works well for both base kinds, but especially well for Jungle bases. White (PVA) glue will generally dry clear and makes good water. Paint the area under it in muddy colors for the jungle and use a couple of different colors to make it less homogenized. The water is a good place for a frog or a flying creature to be added, and leaves can be floating on top of the water, or you can partially submerge a stick to be a floating log.

Enter Sandman
The shifting desert sands can come in many colors on many different worlds, but there is something that all of them have in common. They shift and are mostly barren of other things. If you look at pictures of sand in a desert, you'll notice that it's not just flat. Not only are there dunes and ridges and swells, but there are also little lines and swirls as well. To make the sand on your base uneven or to pick up a little bit of a ridge, put some spackle down. You can smooth it down or shape it however you'd like, then let it dry and paint it. I'd go with a color very close to that of your sand, but maybe just a tad darker. Once that is finished, apply the sand as normal and let it dry as well. For more depth, you can also add a bit of flavor to your base. As with the jungle base, a scorpion or sand viper would go very well here and add to the feel. Alternately, a skeletal hand or a partially covered ribcage help add to the desert wastes effect.

Snow
Snowy bases are generally best served by using spackle to make them uneven and give them a drifted, powdery look. (For the powdery look, very lightly sand the spackle once it has dried.) The best enhancements to snow are footprints and mud. Footprints are fairly easy to make. Just take an unbased figure that doesn't have a slot rail and push the feet into the drying spackle. By repeating this a couple of times, you will have a short trail. Mud makes a great addition as well, because it contrasts with the white of the snow and it adds to the realism of the scene. If you are using the footprint technique, make sure to paint some mud (let the paint dry out slightly to make it thicker) in the bottom of the footprints and on the boots/feet of your models. A bare-limbed tree with snow and ice on it also helps evoke the chilling cold on your base. Icicles can be made by using drops of white (PVA) glue and shaping them as they dry with a toothpick.

Mud
With Deathguard, Death Korps of Krieg and other muddy, bloody armies out there, mud can be a fantastic way to bring out the gritty dirty side of war on your figures. Mud bases are much the same as snow bases (only without the snow, obviously!) Use spackle to give the uneven lumpy effect of mud on the ground and on vehicles. Footprints and drag marks also work very well. Note that if you are using all mud for your base, you should use a couple of different colors, though they should still be close to each other in hue. Use a slightly lighter color to represent dried or drying mud. You could use this around the edges of the footprints, while the darker color would be oozing around the insides of the footprints.

Lava
Lava is one of the coolest (uh, you know what I mean) and easiest scenic bases to do and it will look pretty neat with a very limited amount of work, and it can be extremely eye-catching with a bit more work. First, start with the crust of the lava. You can make it with Green Stuff (Kneadatite) or spackle or Sculpey or whatever putty you'd like. You'll make a series of more or less flat rocks and stick them to the base, leaving little spaces between them. Paint the whole base black, then paint the spaces between the rocks an orange or fiery red color. This by itself is enough to cover it and it'll look pretty good. One step further is to add a tiny ribbon of yellow down the middle of the cracks, not touching the sides, and a tiny bit of red around the sides of the cracks, but not touching the lip of the top of the cracks. (It's probably easiest to just paint the upper half of the sides red, then paint a tiny rim of black back on the lip.) This will give you a gradation showing the different temperatures and looks quite stunning. For the final step, you add reddish-orange highlighting on the model, but as if it were lit from the bottom. This lets you play with Source Lighting techniques (something I plan to put some time in on and something that the top painters do) and really gives the feel of the waves of heat coming off the lava.

Cityscape
For a war-torn cityscape, debris and pavement are the best ways to go. Debris is easily made by chopping up the sprues (the material that your plastic models come attached to) into brick-sized and smaller chunks, with a few longer bits, then glue it all down into a pile. Pavement can be made by using spackle or simply painted on the base. Spackle is better, since you can leave it with a slightly rough surface. Paint it primarily black with the lightest touch of dark grey highlights. Little road markers (like the dotted line between lanes or something) very definitely enhance the look. Some trash or a broken brick would be a good addition as well, as would a mangled street sign.

Space Hulk and High Tech
For this, you want something that looks like either a metal gridwork, or the industrial steel flooring that has the little traction diamonds on it. The best thing I've found for this is either some plastic from a fluorescent light cover or some sort of mesh. Either way, you'll want to give it some Boltgun metal paint with a light drybrush of a brass or bronze color (it should look a little rusty when you are done.) Piping or conduit (sprue material, soda straws or other small tubes) are good here, as are parts of railings.

General bits
Finally, any of these areas are likely warzones. (This is a War game, not a Tea and Crumpets game!) In which case, all of them could certainly feature the detritus of war. Guns and ammunition are great additions, and they are generally things we have plenty of just laying around in our bitz boxes. Bodies are also fun to add to your bases. They may be the broken bodies of your enemies, or for a grittier feel, they may be casualties from your army, waiting for your models to avenge them! Barbed wire can be easily made by using twist ties or simple pieces of wire and twisting them into uneven coils. Skulls are harder to come by, unless you happen to have some of the Chaos sprues or a skeleton regiment box. On the other hand, if you do have even one, you can make a mold of it to get more. In fact, this is a great way to get multiple small bitz for your bases, just don't copy the larger things or you can get in legal trouble. I'll explain how to make a simple Green Stuff mold below. Ammo cases and other crates are also good things to add to your bases to give that war-torn feel. Finally, shell casings are a great and simple addition to any base. They can be made in any size, but for small arms, something the thickness of a toothpick or less is a good idea. Take a toothpick or thin plastic rod and cut it into tiny sections, about 2-3 times as long as they are wide. If you want to go whole-hog on these, you can drill out one end, and smush a small bead of putty onto the other end, giving it a tiny, round rim.

A simple Green stuff mold can be made by pressing the item into putty about half way down. Let that part harden. Then, with the item back in the fully hardened mold, put some mold release or vaseline or something on the surface of the mold and press putty over the top, covering the piece. Separate and let them harden. Once the two halves are fully hardened, place a piece of putty in the middle, squish (that's a technical term) the mold pieces together, then pull them apart and sculpt any details you need on the piece before letting it harden.

So there you have it, a good way to liven (or deaden in some cases!) up those bases and accentuate your good paint schemes, as well as carrying through the theme of your army and adding some depth to your models.

If you enjoyed this, email me and let me know

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