5 - Basing the Giant Gor

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Joe Wiedeman of Mini-Dragon writes:

At this point, the figure itself is finished. The last thing I did to it was add a couple pins to attach him to the base - one in the hand on the ground, and the other in his left foot.

After pinning him, I sprayed the figure with Testors Dullcoat to prevent damaging the paint job when attaching the base.

Next I pushed the Giant Gor (GG hereafter) firmly onto the base, to mark where the pin holes would go. After that, I drilled the holes and test fit to make sure he'd be where I wanted him on the base.

Then I coated the top of the base with white glue. I allowed some of the glue to slop onto the sides of the base as well...I like the not-so-clean-and-perfect effect I get on the base when I do this.

After applying the glue, I dropped the base into my basing mix tub. In this old margarine tub I've got a mix of sand, fine ballast, coarse ballast, and some tiny rocks.

After I took the base out of the tub, I cleared out the pin holes. You can see that with my mix I get a nice variation in the texture of the base...no small rocks got attached this time, but that's okay...it's just less work!

After the glue dried (sped along by a nice hot lamp), I painted the whole base black. (When painting bases, I use Delta Ceramcoat Black - it's cheap and comes in big bottles.) While I was painting everything black, I managed to gouge off some of the basing mix...I quickly decided this would be a mud puddle.

Remember when I said I wanted to add something to help suggest the size of the brute? I did that at this point, adding a broken sword and a beat-up shield from my bits box. (I broke the sword and mangled the shield myself with a sharp hobby knife - be careful to not overdo the damage!) I attached the sword and shield to the base with superglue.

Next, I vigorously drybrushed the whole base with Delta Ceramcoat Brown (again, I use the cheap stuff for bases). It's okay to go real heavy on the paint - we want it to look like dirt, just make sure to leave some of the black showing.

After the brown, I mixed a little bit of Partha Paints Galedon Tan into some more Delta Ceramcoat Brown (I have no idea of the exact mix...just make sure it's noticeably lighter than the brown). I drybrushed this lighter brown onto the base selectively (I did not go over the whole base with it). This gave my dirt a nice, patchy look.

Now I painted the broken sword and the shield. The shield ended up black with a white bull device, and I painted the sword very quickly using Games Workshop Burnished Gold, Shining Gold, and Chainmail (I highlighted the blade with IWM Silver). I didn't paint the handle at all...the various drybrushes left it looking pretty good! I also filled the puddle with white glue.

(I didn't get individual shots of the next few steps...)

I glued on some green flock, then Games Workshop Static Grass (it's expensive, but has a nice mix of colors - and I can't find any other static grass around here!). Finally I glued on some small dried flowers that I'd picked up at a crafts store...I put one under his foot (to make it look as though he was crushing it). A couple ripples in the mud puddle, and the base was pretty much done. Painting the untextured bits of the bases' sides black and putting on my signature finished it up.

Now I attached the GG to his base. I used superglue in the pinholes and bottoms of his hands/feet.

Next Time - Final Details