"Tutorial for fast and good looking basing" Topic

Hi there,

just posted a tutorial on how I do my bases on my blog:

link

Enjoy,

Burkhard

Nice tutorial. One thing. Sand from a beach..wouldn´t it have some salt in it and could that be a bit bad for metal figs??
Cheers
paul

Never thought about it to be honest. But I picked the sand up in 1989 and have used it ever since. I still hsve some of the fist minis I did with that sand and they show no ill effects. But just to be sure, one could always wash the sand (I imagine one could filter it through an old kitchen towel) to remove any salt.

THX,

Burkhard

Nice work there and usefull tutorial Burkhard, although do you know where can i get Italian sand from in the uk…. :o)
(only joking)

slightly OT, your epaulettes/gold effect is great, any tips?

THX Neil,

well I will be in Kent and Wales first week in October… If I find an appropriate beach, I will let you know!

The epaluettes are simple (I can feel another tutotrial coming). Base coat is VAL Cobra Leather (Snakebite Leather from GW). First highlight with Coat d'arms Horse Tone Dun (not sure what the VAL equivalent would be). Last coat is a creme colour I bought without a label from Foundry (a little lighter then VAL Dark Sand).

Cheers,

Burkhard

Thanks Matey, will try it out.

Nice tutorial and an impressive job cross-posting. Kudos.

I use construction grade sand over the beach sand. At $3.00 USD for a 60 pound bag it is cheeper then driving to the beach.

If you want to save money on baseing make it your self. go to your local timber yard ask for very fine saw dust. you want oak sawdust very fine. go to your local DIY store and buy your self water base paint in green for example. poor about 1 pint off paint into a bucket and 1 pint of water, then added your saw. added enuff untill it soaks up the water and is quit think so its very think, so lump your can hardly stirr it. If it starts to lose the colour add more green paint. grap yourself a big metal tray and layer it with news paper. use about 2 whole news pappers, layed on the tray. spread your mix out on the tray about less then 1cm think. put in a warm room and let it dry out for a week. check it every day and change the news pappers twice as this with soak up the water and dry out the saw dust. when it is very well dryed out , you will know as it will sprinkle like sand. hope this helps everyone you will save a fortune. try it with different colours.use different colour paint with these colours very good with brown, yellow, blue, green, red. click on this link and it will show you my work, on toysoldiers and makeing buildings with it. link I also have a lot off work on sale from scale 28mm and 20mm plus more as well for a cheap price and its up for
auction

great post!
Basing continues to be my least favorite part of fig painting.

Nice tips. I should use them in near future.

FAST ? Did you say FAST ? They look real good, but FAST ? Try Litco colored bases. You just glue the figures down, no flocking necessary :)

I use sand also. Works fine.

Sand is I think perfect for bases, add a little bit of cat litter or fine gravel here and there to add abit more variety to the texture. I gotta admit I loath basing at times but its well worth it to see the finished effect.

Thanks guys! So much feedback on an old topic is amazing!

@bottom dollar: Of course not doing bases at all is faster, but that was not the issue here. After all it is a different thing!

THX,

Burkhard

Scomac has a fairly quick basing system you might want to check out on MacPhees Miniature Men. Some differences with Brooklyn but horses for courses. The more of these tutorials you read, the better you should get.

Interesting, thanks for posting. I use paving sand.

Regards,

J. P. Kelly

I like to use the white quartz sand that is used in the braking systems of Toronto street cars. I can often be seen bent over in the tracks scooping it up with a yogurt cup,…and hoping the streetcar doesn't race up behind me!

well Ive used sand from Swansea beach for the last 10 years and I have had no issues with that corroding my figures.

I use sand from the playground at my daughter's school. It has the advantage of having pebbles and twigs to add additional texture.

I pinch the sand out of the spillage-bucket (only the odd cupfull!) at the filling station down the road, nice and fine and because its always been under cover, bone dry.

As a constant user of sand (I'm an architectural stonework conservator) I would wash it well in clean water, sieve it with a kitchen sieve, and then bake it in the oven to dry it out.

That way you get rid of any salt and clay silt, so it will stick and take paint better.

Let it cool first though!

Use the real thing. If you are wargaming napoleon in Italy what better excuse to travel to Lombardy, Tuscany? I never leave Waterloo without a tin full of mud, (but have run out this year). Gettysburg sand/gravel I have not yet used, but it's there! All ready to mix with PVA………

I've use Little Big Horn tan soil and even the famous greasy grass. It works great.
Just don't get caught doing it at the National Battlefields here in the U.S.A.
The rangers do not approve.
At that was before the shut down!

They can get funny everywhere. Even at Waterloo framers look oddly at you for taking soil in a container like a coffee jar. They seem to have enough to spare.

Can get some strange questions though when passing through airport security………..

Great stuff. Sand is the way to go, free from playgrounds and beaches, as is pea gravel for walls from the driveways of the rich and famous (or just rich). I've never liked the tufts of grass thing- it makes everything look like Arizona, but that's just me.

I bought a 50# sandbag of washed playground sand from Home Depot for $2.99 USD five years ago. It will last forever. I just stain it with different color inks and drybrush as the basing need requires, black, brown, chestnut, etc. Then add grass flocking to the areas of the base w/o sand.

Burkhard took a picture of me filling a bag with sand on Omaha Beach. I still use it on bases for my WW2 figures. So far, no damage from salt in the sand.

For large numbers of bases I do the following, which is probably what most people do.

1. My ACW infantry bases are 20mm x 25mm. I buy 25mm wide basswood strips.

2. I paint them on both sides with a white, spirit-based paint on both sides and edges. This seals the wood so that later water-based paints and glues do not warp the wood. It also makes the bottom of the stand into a nice writing surface for a fine Sharpie pen or ink pen so you can easily label the stand.

3. I measure the strip with straight lines at 22mm intervals and saw off individual bases. It takes less than 10 seconds apiece.

4. I slap a coat of green latex paint on the top side of the stands and also dab the edges. Use a big brush and don't lay the freshly painted stands down flat or they might glue themselves down. Each can be laid down tilted on the previous piece.

(To paint the 15mm ACW figures, I ElmersGlue them to cut up pieces of corrigated cardboard. Use a serrated bread knife to cut up the thick cardboard into about 10" x 4" pieces. The soldiers are glued to the cardboard around the edges with about a 2" file spacing. These days, many metal figures have tiny bases and tend to fall over before the glue sets. I use sewing pins which have round, coloured 2mm(?)-diamter heads to support the drunken soldiers until the glue sets. I prime and paint the figures holding the cardboard and spinning it around to get at all the figures. When you tear the figures off of the cardboard, you don't have to completely clean the base of the figure of whatever paper stuck to the bottom. That residue serves to give a bigger base of the figure and makes the top of the basswood base more irregualar))

5. Glue the soldiers to the basswood base using Elmers Glue and let it set.

6. Make up about 20 mL of a slurry of half Elmers Glue and half dark green latex paint. Mix it up.

7. Get many 3 small shallow containers with a lid and fill one each with finely ground turf (model RR stuff), sand, and heavily smashed up short pieces of weed stems).

8. Take an old figure painting brush and cut it down to almost the nubbs. Load it up with the gook from [6.] and smear it onto the top of the basswood stand. Get it in between the figures and where ever else you want the stuff in [7.] to stick. If the figure has a high base on it, then get the gook around the edge of the base so it will eventually blend in with the basswood base. If you haven't painted a background colour around the shoes of the figure, then get around them as well. You don't have to make the gook even, because that will add detail and the pores in the basswood have been sealed.

9. Take the gook-coated base and hold it over the sand and then splitered weed-stem container and sprinkle a little on it. Then do the same with the turf container (hold it over the container, sprinkle and then shake off the excess).

10. You can repeat [9.] with other material as you see fit.

Nice looking bases there Burkhard and really serve to show off your superbly painted figures. Not to my taste though as the terrain looks to 'arid' – fine for the Peninsular War I guess, but not for anything I do. It just doesn't say 'Northern Europe' or 'New England' :)

I use sand to bulk up around my figure bases and add a surprising amount of 'heft' to my plastic figures, but I cover that completely with static grass. For close order infantry, that's it, but cavalry, artillery and skirmisher bases need a little more, so they get kitty litter rocks, twigs and the occasional long grass tuft. I cut this fairly short otherwise it looks like my Hussars are operating in jungle!

Thanks 14th!
One moere tip.

I use a technic close to yours but I first coat the base almost entirely with base texture, then I spread some sable and micro stones over it.

The tip I discovered, to save time, is to mix the base, which comes usually grey or off white, with a few drops of paint (I mostly use "matt earth" from Vallejo and Army Painter's base coat), anykind of base coat or brown paint wil;l work, according to your wishes.
Mix the quantity you need in a spoon with water and apply it onto the base.

Once "sanded" properly and dry, this will give you an almost natural aspect, ready to be drybrushed and/or flocked.

At the end of the day, you save one step in the process!

Hope this helps.

"En avant!"

My wife (bless her) recently discovered colored sand in Michaels craft store which speeds up the process considerably! Just slap some white glue on the base,pour the sand over and let dry. It's a lot finer than builder's sand which tends to look more like railroad ballast or shingle in scale ;)

This is what it looks like with some Pegasus 1939 Germans before flocking is applied

My wife had an old sand sculpture jar from way back that got dropped. It became some very good basing material. It was a beach scene with blues, greens, and tan. Mixed it became a very cool green.