Simple and Effective Bases – Part Two

Also known as:

“HOW I FINISH MY BASES”

...”because I know everyone wants bases like mine”.
(and I don’t really know how simple they should be said to be.)

So, long story short: a while back I was building bases for my units and figured an article on building bases might be helpful or insightful for you readers. So here it is...

Part Two?

Yes, Part Two. For those not in the know, this is the second of a two part series on “Simple and Effective Bases”, part one can be found here. Where the first part detailed how I base my miniatures – attaching to bases, basing materials, etc; this part is a showcase and explanation of how on can easily achieve a variety of different basing looks.


So what’s the what?

Originally I was going to make this a post on painting bases and little finishing touches. A real step-by-step guide through it all; BUT the more I thought about that, the less I liked that idea. These articles aren’t intended to lock you into one way of doing things, but open your mind to how simple things like this can be done.

So instead I’m going to just show you a bunch of examples with comments so small explanatory comments. YAY!


First up those Ret bases.

So, continuing on from the work in the previous basing article I needed to get some bases painted. I attach all my bases to my minis before painting, so they get a good coat of primer to work from. With this Ret I wanted to do something especially quick and straight forward, so here I’ve just painted them Bastion Grey (P3 colour) and then given them a solid wash with a mix of Brown, Black and Green inks (all mixed together with some water), and where it didn’t come out dark enough, I recoated with some black ink.

Super simple = winning.

I had planned to add a little barbed-wire and snow; but am undecided, and in the mean-time they are perfectly fine.

...but lets se some other ideas...
(done in the order I did them... some of these are years old)


Mud and Rocks

Here instead of using ballast like I have used sand. Using Sand can be a bit tricky – if you don’t have enough glue it sinks into the base and underlying surfaces, if you use too much it just looks like concrete. I used a bit much here, but it still came out pretty good. With two simple colours (with a dry brushed highlight IIRC) to differentiate the surfaces and a wash over the top.

Forgive the gloss finish.

Alpine Rocks

Nothing terribly fancy here, a simple change from thin cork sheets to thicker ones (like that used in flooring) really ramps up the size of the rocks and gives things a much more alpine feel. To emphasize the rockiness these rocks are painted in a simple grey base, black wash, 2 levels of grey highlight. Would look great with a little snow and fine grass... but I got distracted.

Rocky Earth

Here I’ve done pretty much exactly the same as for the RoS, but with slightly less focus on high cork (roughing it up to look more like small rocky outcrops). A simple Battlefield Brown and Thornwood Green dry bushed over a black base allows for any rocks you pick out in grey to really pop.

This is actually a part of my old Khador army (where I ‘honed’ this ‘technique’). Looks pretty good if I say so myself.

Snow

You can add snow to pretty much any base, and it’s reasonably simple to use – though do some test runs first. Here I’ve added snow to the bases of my 15pt Khador demo army (reminants of the army mentioned above).

5th Border Legion – scheme from NQ#10

This was m first (and only) time using snow. It’s pretty easy – apply glue, scatter snow on top. Just be careful not to pool to much glue (or the snow settles in to the glue and it doesn’t look quite right), and to use a clear glue (so it doesn’t look off-colour). The great thing about snow is if you don’t have enough you can just add another layer. WIN!

There are allsorts of little recipes that can be found online for snow – some people mix it up with the glue before applying it to the bases, and add a little gloss varnish in too. This is meant to give fantastic looking “melting snow”.


Dry Ground and Battlefield Wreckage

These bases have been built exactly the same as the RoS ones. But I added in some trimed down Khador pieces to the bases while adding the Ballast. A light brown dry brushed jack bone and (very lightly) washed helps ground look dry and loose... and makes the wreckage pop (IMHO of course).

Fort Falk Reserves – scheme from Escalation

Desert Ruins

For my Menoth demo army I wanted to try something a little different. So I purposely reduced the amount of cork used and tried to position it off centre. I then trimed it down to a (very) rough polygonal shape and on the odd edge I reinforced it with some green stuff – to add some sharp straight edges. I then added a mix of ballast and sand to the bases and they were done.

Interdiction of Judgment – scheme from NQ#22

I can honestly say I have yet to figure out the best way to do deserts, but I’m happy with how they came out, especially the ruins.

Close-up of ruined brick work.

Swamp/Marsh

I decided to paint my Cryx in a swamp/marsh theme so needed some marsh bases to go with them. This is a really easy thing to do. I used cork as per usual, but added a sand+ballast mix very sparingly – heavy on the sand and with limited glue. The only catch is you need to ensure the base holes are very well covered.

Blackrock Reserves – scheme from NQ#24

A simple grey/brown colour scheme and several layers of mixed inks, washes and paint (you want dark, mucky and oily) and you get something that looks pretty right. Then after sealing the minis I added a couple of reeds – it’s really easy grab with tweezers, cut to approximate length, dip in glue and attach to bases, trim later if needs be; and filled the bases with gloss varnish (using a dropper). Done!

Close-up of swamp land.

Cracked Earth

An extra bonus example (these were my wives, not mine; but I really like the overall effect). Here ballast/sand/whatever is pretty much thrown out completely, instead circles of cork have been cut out and glued into the bases completely. From there a sharp pointy thing of some sort is used to gouge out cracks in the cork. Add paint and it looks awesome.

Closing Remarks

So there you have it: Doing reasonable to good bases is actually really easy, there are a lot of inspiring pieces out there, all you really need to do is summon the guts to give it a go.