"Flocking" Topic

Just curious, am I the only guy that hates this stuff? I find it messy and over a short period of time it looks like your bases have a bad case of mange. I just paint the stands old school.

I buy colored sands from Michael's Hobby Store, mix three types together, then paint PVA (White) Glue on the base with a disposable 'school paint brush', swish it around in the sand mixture, then tap off the excess, and let it dry. The next day I apply a mixture of water (50%) and PVA (50%), push it around with another disposable 'school paint brush'. When it dries (overnight), the sand mixture is secure, and my bases look great, at arm's length. Here is a link to my blog page demonstrating the technique -- scroll down past the ice stalgmites. Cheers!

I just paint the stands old school.

So do I.

I don't mind flock so much. Static grass I really don't like. Nor do I like the railroad terrain grass.

There are guys out there that do fantastic bases. I, sadly, am not one of them. So I keep them simple.

Matthew

I flock and, when the glue is dry, apply polyurethane varnish with a brush. I've bases done this way over 30 years ago which are still in good condition.

I do the same to put camouflage on WW2 and modern helmets.

Dear Clays Russians

I'm with you. I despise flocking. It's always desperately out of scale even on 28mm-30mm and it's very very messy. I paint the stands.

And what's the point?

unless you're using them on a flocked table top it's actually more jarring with a smooth or even felt table cloth.

Otto

I first spray paint the stands a medium green. After it dries awhile I glue the painted figure to the stand. After that dries I put white glue on the parts I want the flocking material to go on and then add with a plastic spoon. I make sure everything is covered before tapping it down with my finger. The next day I tilt the stand to remove any excess.

I generally flock all of my bases with the same color scatter flocking I use on my terrain and table cover. I prefer the bases to blend in with the terrain. I have found that my flocking mix stays on well by using a combination of brown paint mixed with Elmers white glue.

Nyet on the flock front. Wall filler on the base, followed by sand. Paint relevant colour then add "extras" grass, leaves etc as appropriate.

My wife hates the stuff. It falls off the bases of my miniatures and on to the floor.

I've always thought that the primary purpose for flocking was to hide the outline of the cast figure bases. If the toy soldier look does not bother you, painting them works just fine. If you really don't like that look, flocking is almost always a pain (so I do agree)…but combining spotty flocking (grass not in a lawn grows in clumps) with sand-based and/or soil-colored fillers, grass "tufts", etc. gives the base a diorama-ish look.

That said, when I go that far (and can afford it!) it is such a pain that it adds hours to finishing units and I put it off, sometimes for months…so I always start by painting the bases anyhow!

I am with Ahurman. I really do not like the 28mm figure base jutting up from the base.

I use coarse pumice Gel from Golden mixed with a colour to match my terrain mat and then adding the odd rock or small bush or branch. After the pumice dries hard it is still somewhat flexible so does not crack.

I think you could roughly get the same effect with PVA glue and sand. However, be sure to mix paint into the glue sand mix to mitigate white or sand coloured cracks.

I use undiluted white glue applied quite thick. Then I sprinkle some spots of railroad ballast on (to give some variation) and then submerge the base in flock and let dry while submerged. The white glue soaks into the flock and locks it in place.

Once dry I remove from the flock and brush all of the excess flock from the base. What's left is totally held in place by the white glue and does not come off.

I'm guessing this ends up about the same as varnishing over the flock once it is applied, but does it in one step.

Don't particularly hate flock. I just don't go for decorated bases. Flat black. I find it to be no more abstract than a figure that doesn't change poses.

I used to do flat black bases. Then I tried the colored sand/gravel mixture, and now I am re-doing my black bases. It doesn't take a lot of time to do, and it really does improve the looks of the figure, overall. To each their own, though.

Someone posted, on another forum, that a nice base really distracts from the figure such that a mediocre paint job looks so much better with a decorated base… I did not agree, at first, but once I dressed up a base, and did a side-by-side comparison with an identical figure (same paint scheme even), I was sold.

Many of my figures have either green painted bases, or flat black bases. I am re-doing all of them with the colored sand mixture -- it makes that big of a difference for me. The hardest part I am encountering, is lack of space to put the drying figures after I give them their 1st/2nd coats. They take little time to do, but they need to dry overnight between coats.

I use a mixture of tan and gray sands, and model railroad ballast for my dungeon-based fantasy figures. The green and brown sand/gravel mixture is used for figures which will see mostly grassy environments, so they're not all the same. A few tufts of green colored foam (model railroad stuff) really adds a nice touch to some of the bases (usually hero/leader figures). Cheers!

I'm not a fan of flock or static grass, I either can't get the mixes just right (both) or to stand up (static); tufts have been helping lately.

I do have some CDs of 6mm trees that I based recently, coated with my usual basing mix of wood glue and sand, and started painting green in preparation to flock next…but looking at them from 3' away, with some brown added for exposed dirt areas, they look really good already. So I may just wash with some dark green, drybrush quickly, and call them done.

Agree with Sgt. Slag. Am in the middle of my own rebasing project, making many 80s/90s era D&D figures (true 25s and non-heroic 28s) look great next to modern figures (heroic 28mm, even 30mm).

Instead of buying sand I either borrow from a sandbox, or recently have been using used coffee grounds as the base glued on then a few smears of green flock then glue/water mix to seal. not a work of art but I find they improve even my poor paint jobs.

Flock is fine. Apply it over a thick layer of tan craft paint (while the paint is wet) and it looks good and holds up well.

Personally though, I have switched over to the Foundry/Dallimore style: cover the whole base with Elmer's/PVA glue. Dip it in fine sand or model railway ballast. Knock off the excess when dry. Paint tan. Drybrush light tan and off-white (or pale yellow) over that. Then add patches of static grass by applying small blobs or patches of white glue, then putting the static grass on. Gently blow on the static grass or push it upright while the glue is still wet.

Done. Looks awesome.

Yes, you can't beat sand on PVA with some clumps of grass on top.

I only use pure flock for smaller scales (6mm and 2mm) stuff.

The only untextured bases I have are on my Funny Little Wars stuff, and they are deliberately painted to look like toy soldiers (gloss varnish, pop eyes etc).

As above, a decent base hides my generally dreadful paint jobs and gives a unit uniformity.

Martin is correct that even a crap painted figure with a nice base will look just fine on the table.

My process nowadays is modelling paste stuff to fill up the base and avoid the pitchers mound.

When dry, paint over it in green (it gets kind of shiny).

White glue plus a mix of flock and static grass and it's fine. Need to practice getting the grass to stand up more though.

Of course as a kid painting warhammer stuff, it was glue, sand, goblin green and then drybrush with sunburst yellow :)

Again, I don't hate flock -- I use it on a lot of my terrain pieces. And I appreciate the artistry of decorated bases. So I am not denigrating someone else's thing that I don't happen to get into.

Now, cowering behind that aegis of disclaimers … do you only have one type of terrain on the tabletop? … for all your games?

I can't imagine playing a game without two or three types of terrain. Often, one "type" of terrain (terrain with the same game effects) will have several looks such as cobblestone streets, open dirt, and planking at a dock. And what about that expertly done grass base when the figure gets pushed into the water? (Because if half a dozen guys don't go in the drink, it ain't a dockyard brawl!)

etotheipi, I tried clear bases, with a matte clear coat, to render them 'perfect' for all terrain types. It did not work out very well at all. I finally gave up, tried colored sand, some gravel-type ballast, and the green foam tufts mentioned earlier. I like the decorated bases much more than anything else I've tried, including the translucent, clear bases, which worked on all types of terrain.

It is a compromise, but it is one which I accept over the others I have tried: green painted bases; black painted bases; matte translucent bases, etc. You will never get it to work on every terrain without accepting some compromise (clear bases, with a glossy finish, for example; matte translucent bases that just don't look 'right' somehow…).

I am using different colors of sand to represent different predominant terrains, though. I use green sand, with tan 'rocks', and a small amount of tan sand mixed in, for outdoors bases. For dungeon/cave types of bases, I have a mixture of reddish 'gravel' sand mixed with some grayish train ballast, as well as a brown mixture of 'gravel' sand I just picked up this morning, which has around five different shades of browns (light and dark) in it -- no need to mix anything with it, as the colors vary nicely on their own. The reddish sand was gathered years ago, for mini's basing, but forgotten about until a month ago. The new stuff I picked up because I am on vacation, and I discovered the different colors, and I thought they would be perfect, as well as provide more variety. Cheers!

It certainly is horses for courses, as was already mentioned. Instead of trying to match everything, I just seem to like the bases better when the match nothing. (Well … almost nothing … I've got some magma flats, asphalt, etc., where the black blends, too.) They all come across as equally abstract.

yeah, that's always the case, men with nice green grass at their feet inside the bunker :-)