At the moment there isn’t going to be a lot of painting progress from me I’m of to a tournament for another game 1st weekend of October and decided to take a completely new force (which you might see in the background!) so that’s taking priority however I wanted to start working on my test bases and I think this is the style I’ll use 

So first up the base its self there are a lot of base types out there from MDF to the games workshop style ‘tall bases’ to the warlord ‘dish’ bases which you choose is a personal choice. I think the base is a frame for the miniature so I like it to have a lip so normally I’d choose the games workshop or warlord as these give a nice flat edge to paint a dark colour to act as frame. I don’t do it all the time I’ve done armies on desert bases that were MDF and decided to leave them sand colour as the contrast looked wrong to me. For this project I’m using the warlord ‘dish’ bases  these have a lipped edge so the model sits into it, the idea is that it helps hide the metal stand the model comes on. 

Because I’m doing a moutain theme I really want to add some rocks. For this I use cork (in this case a cheap placemat from a well known Swedish company that does fine meatballs)  breaking it off I add some small bits to the base Now I use super glue to fix to the base rather than PVA this is because I find once it’s stuck if you’ve given it a layer of super glue it’s less likely to break apart further and leave nasty brown gaps on your painted base. 

Next up sand I use this for pretty much everything basing wise as it gives a nice textured surface that paints up well. It’s up to you which sand to use but personally I’d buy proper modellers sand either GW or Army painter. Builders sand is fine but in my experience is a lot finer so it doesn’t look as good once painted 
I use PVA for this stage.

Handy tip of you sprinkle sand over the rocks before using the PVA it’ll stick to any excess superglue and your brush won’t get caught by the super glue if your doing it to soon afterwards. 
On these models me because of the stand the models come on I’ll be using the double layer method because the stands are slightly higher than the lip adding a layer of sand that doesn’t go over the top of the base tab, letting it dry then adding a second layer means the models arnt all stood on small hills and builds up texture while being a lot less time consuming that using putty to build it up first. Top tip after the second layer of sand has dried add a layer of watered down PVA to seal the sand makes life easier later on.

Next up base colour as I’m doing Rocky Mountains I start with P3 great coat grey 

It’s a dark grey and works nicely as a base. Water it down a little bit not to much or it won’t cover the base.
Next step is a black wash, this is important for two reasons first the grey might not cover completely and this darkens down any buts that have been missed. Second it allows for a much greater contrast. Now because I’m an idiot I forgot to take a photo after the grey stage but here’s how it looks after a black wash

Next up a simple drybrush with greatcoat grey again.

Doesn’t change a lot but it tints it towards the grey scale away from black. 

The next step is a drybrush with P3 Frostbite which is a most useful colour 

The light blue / grey works really well for the look I want plus it cuts out about 3 steps of slowly getting lighter here’s Ho it looks after a light drybrush 

Last drybrush step is a light drybrush with white which just adds a final highlight 

So that’s my basic rocky grey method now mine is a winter force so of course I want snow! It’s a personal thing how you make snow but here’s how I do it. 

Mix a pinch of snow flock (I use GW but warlord sell the army painter stuff which is as good here) with a drop of PVA 2-3 drops of thinking medium (I don’t know why it works better than water it just does) and a drop of gloss varnish you need a consistency like this 

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Excuse the poor commentary.

Apply liberally to the base where you think it would tall naturally, so over rocks  etc try not to ‘patch’ the snow as it’ll look odd after all snow doesn’t fall in patches. 

After you’ve got it in the right place you can leave it like that the gloss varnish goes it a shiney melting look when dry and you can always add more once it’s dry however I wanted mine to look a bit deeper so I added some more snow flock over the wet snow mix 

And that’s how I do it! Overall pretty happy with the base and think they will scale up well to my walkers and teams however I want to add something else so I added a tuft and mixed in some snow,

Not sure how I feel about this yet I may yet rip it off and try something else! 

What are your thoughts do you like the tuft? 

If you’ve and questions please leave a comment or drop me an email to the address on the who we are section.

Thanks for reading this mammoth post! 

James