Bases on miniatures
Craig Zimmerman
Could someone please tell me of a good covering for miniature
bases to simulate grass, rocks etc? I have for a while now been
using sand but I find that this is too fine and doesn't give
a realistic finish, at one stage I did try bird grit but found
this to be too chunky. At the moment I am using a mixture of the
two. The miniatures that I am painting are normally Citadel, and with
a base size of 2cm by 2cm.
Thanks,
Craig Zimmerman
Scott Brown
>Thanks,
>Craig Zimmerman
Try this: take a bag of cheap (unscented!) kitty litter, NOT
the "scoop-away" stuff but the gravelly kind. Get three or
four sifteres of various size holes. Start with the largest
holes and sift away all but the biggest pieces; store the
big pieces in a jar. Then move to the next largest size and
repeat, and so on. When you are done you will have a variety
of sizes of scatter material and can select the appropriate
size.
Incidentally, with patience you can build realistic walls
using the larger pieces, some white glue, and wooden
slats for bases.
I find that the stuff paints up pretty well, although it
tends to soak up the paint a bit.
Scott
John Holtz
Elmer's glue and water. Then I sprinkle on varied types of model RR
grass or ground cover (Woodland Scenics is a good brand). For unit
bases, portions of muddy roads or plowed fields can be worked up with
modelling clay or putty then painted before "flocking"(sp?)...which is
the practice of covering stands or bases with model grasses, etc. For
commanders, portions of bombed out buildings, corpses, broken fences
have been modelled to add a little more character: dioramas that don't
just sit on a shelf.
jwh
steve marsh
railroads, and for rocks try railroad ballast. It simulates the gravel
laid under train tracks and should look ok.
steve marsh
ddou...@vmark.co.uk
figures and Dixon 25mm Civil war and find that different basing substances
favour different figures.
For the Civil War I use find grade miliput and for citadel figures (25mm)
basetex or coral sand.
Basetex is from Colour Party paints and Coral sand from Pet shops etc.
For 6mm Citadel and Adler Neps. I use Basetex and Flock. At this size
the flock looks pretty good, as at the large scale of figure it seems to
look very furry.
Oh by the way Basetex comes in many colours such as sand, green, grey,
icy blue/white, brown, light grey.
PVA glue is the best for flock/sand and a little water in it works wonders.
As for grass there is flock as mentioned and something called static grass
which is a fibre, coloured, which you cut to the length you want and stick
it to the base, end first so that it stands up.
Dax
_________________________________________________________________________
Honoristy is the best policy, but insanity is the best defence.
_________________________________________________________________________
Britt Klein
>
> Try this: take a bag of cheap (unscented!) kitty litter, NOT
> the "scoop-away" stuff but the gravelly kind. Get three or
> four sifteres of various size holes. Start with the largest
> holes and sift away all but the biggest pieces; store the
> big pieces in a jar. Then move to the next largest size and
> repeat, and so on. When you are done you will have a variety
> of sizes of scatter material and can select the appropriate
> size.
>
> Incidentally, with patience you can build realistic walls
> using the larger pieces, some white glue, and wooden
> slats for bases.
>
> I find that the stuff paints up pretty well, although it
> tends to soak up the paint a bit.
>
> Scott
I've used kitty litter as well, with decent results. If you primer it
heavily before painting, it doesn't soak (and who needs detail?) in as
much. It's also possible to make `stock' groundcover by using powdered
tempra paint shaken in a jar with the litter and just enough moisture
to make it stick (I use a spray bottle, window-cleaner surplus) or a
drop or two of food coloring (you can mix a lot of colors with only three
to start), then let it dry and overcoat _heavily_. If it comes out wet,
a few minutes in a 200-degree oven dries it right out.
Use white glue or craft glue, anything heavier tends to soak the litter.
In addition, I have a lot of ziplock bags in my car and backpack. Have
been known to scoop up sand at the beach or river, bark dust bits, tree
moss, dirt, dead grass... List goes on and on. I've never paid for
professional groundcover supplies, there's too much free out there.
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tie...@agora.rain.com tie...@glia.biostr.washington.edu
Gengt Amnehagen ETX/U/D
> Could someone please tell me of a good covering for miniature
>bases to simulate grass, rocks etc? I have for a while now been
>using sand but I find that this is too fine and doesn't give
>a realistic finish, at one stage I did try bird grit but found
>this to be too chunky. At the moment I am using a mixture of the
>two. The miniatures that I am painting are normally Citadel, and with
>a base size of 2cm by 2cm.
>Thanks,
>Craig Zimmerman
Hi Craig.
The slottabases are quite small, so usually i skip some of the stuff below, but for a "masterpice"
nothing is to much!
First GROUNDWORK
The soil base for the display on which all the other junk goes. Several options for this,
eg Sculptamold (from American Art clay compay I think), Some epoxyputty of choice or just
plain acrylic paint or white glue.
For Pebbles, stones and small boulders I use sand of varying sizes, kitty litter or broken
pieces of plaster, but Woodland scenics also sells bags of colored grains to ,be used as eg
railroad ballast on model railroads. press all stones and such firmly into groundmaterial.
Material to be used ass grass are sold in hundreds of varietys for railroad modelling. The
best IMHO is static grass from Verlinden or Heki, but Woodland scenics' stuff i also ok. Mix whiteglue with acrylic paint (50/50), sprinkle grass generously and press gently. Wait a while and blow off excess. Drybrush.
For longer grass, use any thin fiber: Hair, bought grasssimulation stuff, hair from an old brush
or something similar. Mix glue and paint just as with short grass an press small tufts of grass into the glue.
Bushes and trees can either be homemade or bought. Woodland scenery make the best on the market, and they also make the best foliage material on the market if you choose to make your own trees.
Hope thats enough, I dont want to waste more bandwith than necessary. Mail me if you need more!
Bengt.
Mike Campbell
>
>
> Could someone please tell me of a good covering for miniature
> bases to simulate grass, rocks etc? I have for a while now been
> using sand but I find that this is too fine and doesn't give
> a realistic finish, at one stage I did try bird grit but found
> this to be too chunky. At the moment I am using a mixture of the
> two. The miniatures that I am painting are normally Citadel, and with
> a base size of 2cm by 2cm.
Craig - over 2 decades of wargaming, I've found that the colored
sawdust and fibre ground cover sold by model-railway shops is the
easiest material to use.
I use green fine sawdust, green/fibre fibre and brown/tan sawdust.
I vary the proportions depending on whether I want to simulate desert
or lush, etc.
All I do is mix the stuff in a (dedicated) desert bowl to the required
colour, paint the base tops with EXCESSIVE amounts of a suitable
background colour (I use acrylics for this, they're cheaper), then
submerge the base in the mixed cover. Let it stand for an hour and
shake the excess back into the bowl. The last step is to paint the
exposed edges.
Mike Campbell, Christchurch, New Zealand
mi...@aloysius.equinox.gen.nz
Alec Habig
>
> Could someone please tell me of a good covering for miniature
>bases to simulate grass, rocks etc?
I have had decent luck with the following method :
Paint the base some generic green color. For me, the base is the lead stubs
the figure stands on, glued to some posterboard, sometimes stuck to some sheet
metal.
Slather up the base really good with Elmer's white glue. Not watered down,
simply squirted on.
Take some of the shredded green foam that model RR users like (may require a
bit of further hand shredding, depending on the product), and cram a bunch of
that onto the gluey base. Let it dry. The foam sucks up the glue fairly well,
so the whole thing is very fragile at this point - I usually leave the figs
sitting up to their waists in this big file of foam (only the very bottom layer
of which is actully in contact with glue) - don't handle them at all
or the foam falls off the base, until an hour or so later when it is dry.
Shake off the loose foam, take an exacto knife, and shave down the resulting
mound of foam to something that's scale grass height. Usually I've got to fill
in a few bald patches with little bits of foam and globs of glue.
Presto! It's done. The texture looks good, it's reasonably durable. The foam
comes in little bags for a buck or two, and goes a long way. I've found the
total time required to be pretty minimal compared to the painting, although the
need for the second pass with the xacto knife might bother some - but it goes
much more quickly than this description might seem at first.
Alec
Tom Townsend
:
: Could someone please tell me of a good covering for miniature
: bases to simulate grass, rocks etc? I have for a while now been
: using sand but I find that this is too fine and doesn't give
: a realistic finish, at one stage I did try bird grit but found
: this to be too chunky. At the moment I am using a mixture of the
: two. The miniatures that I am painting are normally Citadel, and with
: a base size of 2cm by 2cm.
I use foliage cover material from Woodland Scenics. It's the fine powdery
stuff.
I use two small (4" X 4") trays. In one I put a glue / water mixture (1:1).
In the other I put the foliage material.
After I glue my figures to their bases, I dip them up to their bootsoles in the
glue and then dip them in the foliage stuff.
By using a combination of floiage colors and textures (or rocks etc) you
should be able to get a good base material.
Tom Townsend
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| | Tom Townsend
| | | world.std.com
| |__ | 513.293-9473
Coyt D Watters
>s93...@yallara.cs.rmit.OZ.AU (Craig Zimmerman) writes:
>:
>: Could someone please tell me of a good covering for miniature
>: bases to simulate grass, rocks etc? I have for a while now been
>: using sand but I find that this is too fine and doesn't give
>: a realistic finish, at one stage I did try bird grit but found
>: this to be too chunky. At the moment I am using a mixture of the
>: two. The miniatures that I am painting are normally Citadel, and with
>: a base size of 2cm by 2cm.
>
>I use foliage cover material from Woodland Scenics. It's the fine powdery
>stuff.
[snip]
A good method to use is to mix about 50/50 white glue/water, and add about
a teaspoon of liquid detergent for every pint of mix. The detergent will
help break the surface tension of the water/glue mix. Some use alcohol/
white glue, since the alcohol will evaporate much more quickly - YMMV, and
be careful with some plastics.
After gluing the figures to the bases (I use coins with magnetic strip glued
to the bottom), place the figure on a non-stick surface (I use waxed paper)
then use a "throwaway" paintbrush (I use cheap - 99cents gets 24)
to "paint" the mixture where you want the material to bond. This gives a
bit more control to the placement of glue than squirting/dipping.
Take your mix of ground cover (I use (no surprise) Woodland Scenics ballast),
and sprinkle a spoonful on the figure's base. Let the figure stand a bit,
say about an hour, and then shake the figure back over the container of ground
cover. You should get quite a bit of excess back into the container, and
a nice coating over the base of the figure. If needed, dribble on a little
more glue mix with a dropper, and reapply cover.
The paintbrush can be cleaned (if it's kept wet) by running water through it.
Same for the dropper.
The Woodland Scenics is pretty inexpensive - I just based about 16 25mm figs
with only 2 teaspoons of Ballast.
-Coyt
Raymond Moffatt
their Terrain Maker system to make various kinds of terrain. I don't use Terrain
Maker per se but many of the techniques are useful nonetheless, even if it's just
to generate more ideas, etc.
It also contains a bunch of scenarios, & some other peripheral information.
Raymond Moffatt
rr...@bnr.ca
Allan Wright
>
> Could someone please tell me of a good covering for miniature
> bases to simulate grass, rocks etc? I have for a while now been
I use Railroad scenery turf mixed with two different colors of 'ballast'
which is also railroad scerery. (i.e. woodland scenics) Throw on an odd pebble
or clump of folliage clusters (also rr stuff) and this makes pretty good
bases. On 25mm figures you can also throw on patches of sand or other stuff
for more variety.
-Al
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