How to: Bases

As previously promised, here's a quick walk through on how I do my bases.

Materials:
PVA glue
Old paintbrush or toothpicks
Basing sand
Static grass (one color is fine but two is better)
Static grass clumps (one color is fine, two is better)
Black primer
Brown paint
Lighter brown paint
Light brown or tan paint.

1. We'll start with a standard 40mm round base.  Cover the top with a layer of your favorite PVA glue.  You can water it down and spread it with ano old brush or even a toothpick.  Once the glue has been spread evenly, I place the base upside down in my container of basing sand.  Then I'll flip it over and shake the container to make sure the base gets a good even coating of sand.

I've had a container of the old GeeDubs basing sand for ages.

I bought a large container of the basing sand sold by GeeDubs probably 10 or so years ago and I'm still nowhere near done with it. Their packaging at the time was less than ideal so I eventually transferred it into a small storage tote with a locking lid.  I also sifted out all the larger rocks.  It gave the bases more variety but also had a tendency to make it harder to place the miniatures.

GeeDubs packaging times 1000

Be sure to give the glue a couple hours to dry, ideally overnight.

2. Our next step will be to prime our base black.  I like to use Vallejo Black Surface Primer.

I spray this in my airbrush at about 20 psi.

Our primed base.

Once again, be sure to give this plenty of time to dry.  Overnight is not entirely necessary but several hours at least.

3. Next, I paint the base with Vallejo Game Color scorched brown.  I also spray this through my airbrush just for ease of application.  It is perfectly feasible to paint it on with a brush.

It's tough to see but the base is now brown.

4. Now we add our first highlight using P3 Gun Corps Brown.  Give the base a fairly heavy dry brush at this stage.

First highlight applied.

You can see how dry brushing our highlight started to make the raised edges of the sand pop.

5. We'll now dry brush our second and final highlight using Vallejo Game Color Khaki.

The base on the left had a heavier application of khaki than the one on the right.  Since we will be adding more materials to our base shortly it is nothing to be concerned about.

6. Our next step is to begin adding I our grass products.  This most certainly warrants and in depth discussion of available products but I will leave that for another time.  First I will be using a static grass from The Army Painter.  They call it Steppe Grass.

The Army Painter has a great lineup of basingetting materials.

This comes in a nice little tub that should last quite a while.  My method for applying  this is to start by putting some PVA glue on a piece of masking tape.  Use a toothpick to dab the glue on your base in the spots you would like to grass to be.

Just apply the glue fairly sporadically across the base.

Then while holding the base over your tub of grass, use a pair of tweezers to grab a clump of grass and basically drop it onto your patches of glue.  Once you've applied all the grass you want, give it about 30 seconds and turn the base over to dump and excess material back into the tub.  Give the base a few gentle taps will also help dislodge any errant blades of grass.  If you wanted, you could leave your base like this and call it good, but I like to go a few steps further.

7. Apply some more PA glue in the splotches manner we used previously.

Just like before.

Now we're going to apply some of the brighter green static grass that GeeDubs used to sell.

I keep this in a container just like my basing sand.

Apply it in the same manner using your tweezers.  Fingers would work too.

8. Next were going to apply just one or two smaller grass clumps.  These are also a product from The Army Painter.

These come in a variety of sizes and colors.

The different shapes and colors of the clump grasses will help break up the base.  I'm going to use one winter tuft and one wilderness tuft.  Simply place a spot of glue on your base, open the package of clumps, grab one with your tweezers, gently pull it off the backing paper and place it on your base.  They're very simple to use and ado a great level ofor realism.

Our nearly completed base.

The final step is to paint the rim of the base.  I usually choose black, but you can do whatever color you like.

Here are a few shots of our base with a Stormcast Eternal Liberator glued on.

I hope this how-to article has given you a few ideas or tips.  You can check out more of my work on Instagram @themediocremodeler.  Until next time, happy modeling.