Base Tutorial

This is  a different kind of post from most of my musings here. I hope to be able to provide tutorials once in a while, as I think the hobby is supposed to be shared.

I have often been asked how I make the bases for my miniatures. Not so much the big elaborate scenic bases, but the many and often very alike gaming bases. Here we shall take a look at what has almost become my go to method of making bases for my miniatures. I don’t paint by numbers or recipe, so to speak, but making a certain kind of base for many figures tends to develop certain standard techniques anyway. Making bases for warbands and armies need to be rather consistent, so we need to be able to make bases in the same repetitive way from time to time.

I built a rust man in order, to have a piece for a walk through of base making

As opposed to a big show piece or vignette, the base of a gaming miniature should be a little discrete. The base should provide a fitting scene or environment for the figure, add a bit of interest maybe, but not drag attention away from the figure on top.

This is by no means rocket science, but it makes for a little thought before getting started. For many of my 40k figures, I want a kind of muddy, swampy wasteland, maybe the site of a civilization having been eradicated by war. A few rocks, bricks, old pieces of metal debris and maybe even broken machine parts will fit in. My skaven come from a very similar place, so apart from clearly futuristic machine parts on the bases, my skaven bases have evolved into much the same technique as my 40k/Inq28 figures. If I were to make bases for a warband of high elves for instance, I would go for much brighter colors, no destruction and maybe intact flagstones, luscious green and life. For wood elves even more plant life and maybe small animals as well.

I see my building and painting of a figure as a whole, including the base, so the base will mostly be constructed as I build my miniature, under coated with it and painted gradually as I paint my figure. In this way I automatically get a coherent, tied together result with a natural interaction between the figure and its environment.

Now the figure is mounted on its gaming base, it does not have to be completely built at this point. We are now ready to put the texture and details on the base. You can use many different materials for this, the only important thing is to have some fine-grained sand or soil, to base the texture around, to make it look natural and to scale.

Here I have made a selection of materials I will use for this one, I will not necessarily use it all for this figure, but now I have everything at hand, so I can pick anything that takes my fancy. The bricks are little ceramic ones from Juweela. Apart from the bricks and bits, there is fine sand, PVA glue and soil. The soil is taken from an old potted plant. When you use natural materials like this, make sure to bake it in the oven first, 125Celcius for an hour, to make sure there is no moist, bugs or bacteria left in it.

I’ve now made a mix of PVA glue, sand and soil, this should be slightly thick, but not feel dry.

I smear the sand, glue, soil mix over the base, it can easily be manipulated with a wet brush. Don’t use your brand new, expensive, perfect Series 7 brush for this as it can be very hard on the brush, use an old one. Let the material build up towards the middle of the base, leave a few random places empty of it, let the texture kind of fade out. I smear some of the stuff up on the legs of my rust man, he is walking through the mud and debris of a broken civilization, getting dirty himself. This would go for skaven, orcs, WW2 soldiers in the field and many more kinds of figures, that get dirty. On the other hand a polished High Elf, a soldier on parade or Emperor Napoleon would never get dirty, so keep it off of their boots.

When my base mix is still wet, I add some little bits of interest. Here, a few small bits of slate, Juweela bricks, an old screw, a couple of gears from old watches and a skull. I just stick them in the wet glue, sometimes the bits do not stick properly when the glue has dried, then I just give them a drop of thin superglue, that’ll teach them.

Still when the glue is wet, I sprinkle a little soil on top for extra texture. This should be crushed between your fingers to make a fine powder. You can also use fine sand, plaster or even baking soda for this. I do this differently from time to time, this is no set science.

Once the first mix of base materials and glue is fully dry, it is time to fix it a bit more to the base, for this I use thinned down PVA glue. To add further interest and natural diversity to my base I sometimes add a little static grass at this point as well. So I get sorry little patches of grass here and there on the battlefield. These are of course not appropriate on every single base, so be aware of plausibility before adding something new to a base. I do this in a very simple way; I just load my (old) brush with thinned glue, then dip it in the grass and let the grass end up in random places on the base.

Now with extra glue and a little grass all over the base. A little water on a brush can manipulate it around and remove excess.

Now the base is fully dry and my figure is ready for base coat and paint.

Now everything has got the zenithal base coat. First black, then a blast of white spray from above.

I paint my base along with my figure to make everything come together coherently. First color on the base is an earthy brown, thinned down, it is important to get it into the recesses to create a base for subsequent colors, outer areas will naturally be painted over eventually.

Here my figure has been washed with a mid brown wash, a mix of Strong tone and Soft Tone from Army Painter. You can also use GW Agrax earth shade and Seraphim Sepia for this. I use this wash to start the shading and definition of my figure and I extend it down on my base as well, to create a little shadow and definition here as well.

Here I’ve drybrushed my base heavily with P3 Menoth White Base, you can also use bleached bone or any other creamy off white color. You could mix your own for more natural diversity. Now the details and textures of the base really start to stand out.

Now I prepare three glazes. Black, green, rust brown. I thin the paints a lot in preparation of the next step.

To begin with, I give the base a liberal coating of the black glaze, then I add the green and the brown in patches here and there letting everything run together. I concentrate the green at grasses and little rocks and I  concentrate the brown on the bricks and metal debris, so the colors fit just a little.

Here everything is running together nicely, it does not have to be very tidy, on the other hand if you just make a mess of it, it will seem more natural.

Now the three glazes are dry. Sometimes I end my bases here, but this one, I think need a little more depth.

…So I drybrushed it a little more with Menoth White Base.  Note that the drybrushing is now much lighter than the first time. It is really only a little bit.

Another application of my three glazes This time I also added some undiluted brown paint at the bricks and debris, to make those bits stand out a little more.

Note that I let the glazes touch the legs of my figure as well, it is the same dirt that soils his legs after all.

The finished rust man

Once the final glazes are dry I VERY lightly drybrushed the base a final time, then painted the edge black and my figure was done. Well it got painted in between the stages of painting the base.

This is but one of uncounted ways of making bases. It works for me and I make many of my bases like this, though rarely identically like it, it is a fluid spontaneous process and I vary it and develop it constantly, but this forms the core of most of my base making.

A rear view

Clinc, Clanc Clunc

Clinc, Clanc, Clunc

His soul is rotten

His blood is dust

He is often forgotten

He is made out of rust.

I hope you found some inspiration here or clarification, some useful technique or another view on the base making process.

Kristian