Tutorial - How i make my bases

In this tutorial i will show how i make my bases and which things you will need in order to try it yourself.

Part I

Things you need:

1. One Base
2. modeling mass (air aging)
3. dental technican instrument
4. water
5. a small schist rock

Step One

Apply some of the modeling mass to your base and burnish the borders with your dental instrument. I use an instrument called "Le Cron". Note that its better if your instrument is wet - the wet mass will not "glue" on your instrument and will disperse itself easily.

Step Two

Now we need the schist rock. Use the border of the rock and press it careful in your modeling mass. The mass will adopt the schist structur.

Step Three

Put your miniatures on their "final" positions and burnish the crossing between miniature base and mass with your wet dental instrument. If you followed the steps above your base should look loke this:

After that let your base aging for 12 hours. During this time you can paint some miniatures :)

Part II

Things you need:

1. Woodglue
2. Static gras
3. GW Colours Scorched Brown & Bleached Bone
4. GW Colours Codex Grey & Fortress Grey (not shown on the picture)
4. MiniNatur gras & flowers (Summer, Spring, Autumn in all sizes, Flowers are "Blumen (violett)" MINA_998-24S)
5. Vallejo Sierra Calcinado pigments
6. Some bushes
7. Sand (not shown on the picture)

Step four

Now use the woodglue + sand and bond the base first with glue then with sand. Let it dry for some hours and seize the time for painting :)

Step five

After drying paint the sand with GW Scorched Brown and let it dry again. Then drybrush the base with GW Bleached Bone. Pay attention to the fact that no moisture and not much paint is on your brush! Maybe i can add a picture in the future how your brush should look like but i guess most of know have the knowledge about the drybrushing technique.

In addition for the rock you need the GW Colours Codex Grey and Fortress Grey. Prime the rock with Codex and after this drybrush it with Fortress. Its the same technique like above.

Step six

The key step in my opinion. We take now the Vallejo pigments! A very very useful product for basing, weathering and so on.

Dip your brush in the pigments and strip as much pigments as you want off. How much it is lies in your hand depending on your basing are. Experience a little bit.
Put the pigments now on the base and drybrush them in any direction. Yes, you see the drybrush technique is very effectiv :)

If you are not pleased with allocation of the pigments take some water on your brush and wash it away.
If you think there are too much pigments on an area just blow them away.

Drybrush the rock in the same way. For both, base and rock, i use Vallejo Sierra Calcinado pigments. It looks very realistic for some sandy terrain.

Step seven

Now we make the base "alive". Take the woodglue and bring on some grass, flowers and bushes. Voilá we are ready.

I hope this was helpful. If you have any questions or think that something is not detailed enough please feel free to contact me.

Comments, hints and critics are welcome too :)