Basing your models.

Over the last few months I have been fortunate enough to receive several compliments on the basing of my miniatures. So I wanted to discuss the reason behind why I take the extra step and go into the stages involved.

For me the base is the background that reinforces the story of the army, whilst I'm not one for 'fluff' in general, I do like to give my miniatures a context. For example when I started my British Para Troopers for Flames Of War I had a solid idea I wanted them to have a late summer, early autumn feel.
The Warriors Of Chaos I have started work on will have a winter theme running through it, so lots of frozen water and snow.
Most of us spend ages painting our models to only stop short at the end, which seems a shame. Imo a good base will enhance the model just as much as a good paint job.

I get all the materials I need for the basing at the start of the project so I can maintain consistency in the finished force.

99% of my models get the traditional pva and sand treatment, but recently I have started to use Vallejo coarse pumice to great effect (I will post pictures in due course) I highly recommend giving it a go. Onslaught are selling it for those that are interested.

The extra stages only really involve a few seconds on each base using grass tufts and ground cover.
For my ground cover on 15mm models I use a mixture of flock, static grass and fine turf from Woodland Scenics mixed together in a container. I have long forgotten the colours but they all match in pretty easily. I use watered down wood glue to stick it down.
Once the ground cover is dry I follow it up by super gluing on the Silflor/MiniNatur tufts that i get here. The end result can be seen on my Para's.

The Flames of War players out there may be interested in these bases from Kerr & King they offer most of the popular environment's. I love the extra details such as the cows. They needed very little prep work on them and painted up very easily.

On my 28/31mm models I avoid the ground cover but I have started adding Woodland Scenics Underbrush in small clumps in addition to the tufts.

Home made weathering pigments

Although I do use branded pigments (mainly Vallejo) I wanted to try and make my own as a way of trying to get my own blends. The idea is very simple, take some chalk pastels and scrape the edge with a sharp blade and use the resulting dust. Although the dust isn't the finest it works well on bases, but with some extra grinding I see no reason why it wouldn't work as dust for vehicles etc.

This is the result after mixing it with some acrylic brush on varnish. I made them in to a wet paste and applied them with an old brush. I think they would work well for tred/tire mud or areas of heavy rusting.