Experimenting with Bases

*Update*

Here are all of the bases that I've done together. 

I like the theme and I think they turned out well. I will now finish off this Malifaux crew before I move onto making new bases for the next set. I am not sure about the theme yet, but maybe bricks of some sort. 

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One thing that I always notice on other people's models is their awesome bases. Some people buy amazing bases from retailers and paint them up nicely. Others are really talented with crafts and green stuff.

For me, I have always found the store bought bases to be a bit pricy and hard to get ahold of. And I haven't had the courage to bother trying to make my own (until recently). 

For the most part, I used to just slap some static grass or mud on my bases. 

Not any more!

My first experiment with bases happened a few months ago. This was the result. 

It isn't terrible, but the end result wasn't exactly what I wanted. The grass didn't work, the glue was shiny and the rocks didn't turn out as well as I hoped. 

I decided to give this kind of technique another shot today. 

This time, I wanted to create a wood sidewalk old west themed base. 

I bought this stuff from a store and got started. 

The stuff has a nasty smell to it and it hardened much quicker than I thought it would. Still, this is how it turned out. 

I went with the 60% base coverage accidentally. I wanted to see how hard it was and ended up snapping a plank off. But, it worked out in the end. I just treated it as the edge of the wooden sidewalk. 

And this is how it looked after I slapped some paint on it. I think it turned out much better than I thought I would. I have 6 more of these to make. I think they will make my models look a lot better than just plain old grass or mud. 

Making Bases

I decided to try my hand at making bases. 

Typically, I have always just used mud or some kind of dirt for my bases. I have also used static grass before; but when I used that grass in the past, I usually just covered the whole base. 

This time, I decided to try and make some stones out of some putty stuff I bought as a substitute for green stuff. 

The putty I used wasn't hard and pliable like you would imagine. Instead, it was the consistency of white glue that was about to dry. So as I applied it, it was a little tricky to move around and shape as I wanted it. 

Instead, I just let the putty smooth out naturally on the base as it dried. After a few hours, I took a file to it and carved out stones as best I could. 

I then painted up the rocks and applied grass to the base. My idea was to make it look like the grass was growing up between the rocks in an overgrowth fashion. 

Unfortunately, the PVA glue that I used definitely shows with a weird shine. Other than that, I am happy with the results. 

I learned a lot from this experiment and I am excited to try a slightly different approach next time.