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So I decided to base my Space Marines army with City of Death type bottoms and had recently been inspired by some other artists to try using cheap household things to model with. (One guy used only coffee cups in some pretty ingenious ways! Check youtube for a video)

I started by cutting my guys off the bases I had glued them on. (So that's why they are silver looking with Black footprints... from when I spray painted them.)

Go to THE GALLERY for bigger images...

Here are some images of the bases without paint:



Items I used:
- a cut up matchbox
- a wooden chopstick
- scotch tape pushed together to look like bent metal
- cut styrofoam
- elmers glue
- superglue
- plastic tubing
- wire
- some screen door material i bought at the hardware store
- bits from a 40k sprue
- some round metal beads

Then I primed it all...


And finally I painted them!



I used a way bigger variety of paints than you would actually need to use. I was just toying around with different colors and seeing what I preferred.
Paints I used:
- Chaos Black (around the edge of the bases)
- Red Gore (for the wire)
- Boltgun Metal (for the base color of the metal)
- Mithril Silver (for the highlights on the metal)
- Codex Gray (for the Stone rubble)
- Scorched Brown (for the cracks between and in the rubble)
- Skull White (for the highlights on the rubble)
- Snakebite Leather (mixed with elmers glue for the goowy slime coming out of the sewer)

I also used washes at various stages. I used Devlan Mud (for the dirty/rusty look on the metal and in the cracks of the rubble) and Badab Black (for prettymuchh all the cracks)

So then I glues the models back onto the bases (note that I am not finished painting the models..)




There are certainly a lot of things I learned and I discovered some things I will do differently in the future. (Use elmers glue, not superglue for chopsticks and cardboard. Mixing paint with elmers glue doesn't give the greatest water effect, but it has potential... so I'll be playing with that more. etc.)[[Category: Warhammer 40,000]] [[Category:Warhammer 40,000 Painting and Modeling]]

I hope that helps someone out there. Let me know if you have any questions and thanks for taking a look at my stuff!

i like them! i want to try it out now!

Yeah pretty nice man, and on a budget too.

You should try using colours that contrast with your Marines for bases though, would bring them out a lot more. At the moment they are kinda lost in all the silver.

Looks really nice, and from if it's as cheap as you said it was, then good job!
But yeah, as JaxnFury said: Use colours that contrast, it will look a lot better. If you can't think of a colour, why not rust some of the metals on the bases?

ooh nice tutorial. thanks for sharing.

Well, like I said, the models aren't nearly finished yet (as evidenced by the captain's hideously painted face), I just got distracted by assembling my ork army and never finished painting their details... mostly because I haven't decided yet on what 2nd color to add to them. Possibly a bright red or blue? (I've always really liked the look of the left side and right side of a unit split down the center to be contrasting colors so maybe I'll develop it into something like that.. or just a really nice darker blue or turquoise head with the rest of the bodies staying silver/blending in.) But I wanted them to be in an environment in which they, for the most part, blended into. So they would look just like the rest of the rubble.

You're right though, they do need something more to make them pop, I just haven't quite decided on the color scheme.
Maybe I should just give up on my original idea so that they pop more...

And yeah, the bases really were as cheap as I said/ showed them to be.

(Another thing I should have added to the bases would be some gravel/sand to make the entire thing look like rubble. - Luckily this was just a smaller test on a few guys. Now I'll know more of what I actually want for when I base the rest of the marines!)

Try to add some 40k Bits to tie them in. Helmets of dead Space Marines, empty Boltguns, spent magazines, etc.

That ruined corner made with a matchbox... Dang, that turned out good!

Popsicle wrote:Try to add some 40k Bits to tie them in. Helmets of dead Space Marines, empty Boltguns, spent magazines, etc.

One problem with that, these are space marines! They aren't normally gonna be killing other marines. But yes, I get your point and it's a good one. These were just some quick ideas I was playing around with. I encourage everyone to elaborate on them!

micahaphone wrote:That ruined corner made with a matchbox... Dang, that turned out good!

Thanks! I really like it too. I might make a bigger building like that. Or at least continue using metal sheets like that. It was quite easy to paint too. Bolt gun metal base coat, then I just dabbed Devlan Mud and Badab Black washes onto it randomly, to give it a nice worn look and then highlighed parts of it with Mithril Silver!

NakedBatBoy wrote:

Popsicle wrote:Try to add some 40k Bits to tie them in. Helmets of dead Space Marines, empty Boltguns, spent magazines, etc.

One problem with that, these are space marines! They aren't normally gonna be killing other marines. But yes, I get your point and it's a good one. These were just some quick ideas I was playing around with. I encourage everyone to elaborate on them!

Doesn't mean there won't be dead space marines on the battlefield!

James96 wrote:

NakedBatBoy wrote:

Popsicle wrote:Try to add some 40k Bits to tie them in. Helmets of dead Space Marines, empty Boltguns, spent magazines, etc.

One problem with that, these are space marines! They aren't normally gonna be killing other marines. But yes, I get your point and it's a good one. These were just some quick ideas I was playing around with. I encourage everyone to elaborate on them!

Doesn't mean there won't be dead space marines on the battlefield!

QFT.

Captain Solon wrote:

James96 wrote:

NakedBatBoy wrote:

Popsicle wrote:Try to add some 40k Bits to tie them in. Helmets of dead Space Marines, empty Boltguns, spent magazines, etc.

One problem with that, these are space marines! They aren't normally gonna be killing other marines. But yes, I get your point and it's a good one. These were just some quick ideas I was playing around with. I encourage everyone to elaborate on them!

Doesn't mean there won't be dead space marines on the battlefield!

QFT.

But of course, I agree (as I'm not much of a SM player)... but I also like to have good looking models and they should be awesome enough that they don't need to walk on their own dead.

Looks great. im going to try it

zing165 wrote:Looks great. im going to try it

Post the results so I can see!

Is that just regular styrofoam? or a special hobby brand?

I've got tons of regular styrofoam, but the only thing holding me back from using it all, is that it melts when spray painted.

I've heard if you soak it in a watered down glue solution and let it dry, it puts a protective layer over the foam so spray paint wont hurt. Haven't tried that method, any one else know if it works?

Psyker_9er wrote:I've heard if you soak it in a watered down glue solution and let it dry, it puts a protective layer over the foam so spray paint wont hurt. Haven't tried that method, any one else know if it works?

Yeah, I was gonna say, that's exactly what I did (though I didn't even water it down.) I just coated it with elmers glue. (Though not that well obviously as you can see some of it melted a bit. But yeah, on some other scenery I did the elmers glue (I accidentally discovered that it formed a protective coat!) it worked well.

I also have started using some plater like powder that I mix with water that I spread over the styrofoam. It gives it a solid cement looking outside, but as it's styrofoam it's still nice and light and easily workable.

I really like the bases...this will come in handy for me....i have trouble seeing household items or basically anything as a pliable/potential conversion piece for scenery.

hmm, they're pretty good, and smart use of objects!

Looks good. May have to try my hand at it.

They look pretty cool. Might try some of it for a marine project.

Great tutorial, I will defiantly use these now.

These are really cool! Definitely a lot of inspiration.
I recommend that instead of reworking the colour scheme of your marines you try incorporating some brown into the base itself. I think that in a ruined city there'd be plenty of mud and dust and rust all over the place that could result in a brown base colour for the bases, with grey reserved just for the bits of actual concrete.

jackanory wrote:These are really cool! Definitely a lot of inspiration.
I recommend that instead of reworking the colour scheme of your marines you try incorporating some brown into the base itself. I think that in a ruined city there'd be plenty of mud and dust and rust all over the place that could result in a brown base colour for the bases, with grey reserved just for the bits of actual concrete.

Absolutely, great advice. I'll try that with my next SM bases(I've been preoccupied with my orks lately), and possibly do that to these too after I add some gravel. I'll keep you posted.

Ah yeah, that's quite nice. Looking at the first images I thought to myself "What the hell is he doing! This looks stupid.". And then you primed them. I am going to be using your ideas for pipes and rubble. I still want some slate bits for making broken sidewalk, though. I also agree with jackanory. A bit of contrast would have made this ace.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Also, I think that adding bits of a bright green grass growing from the crevices of the rubble to this could add to the realism. Just don't overdo it.

Check out my project blog (Plog) if you're interested in seeing my progress with the bases/sm's or orks.

I would love more critiques... I made some possible color changes to the armor as well as adding a preliminary dark brown base color to the ground to see how it looks. Check it out!

Simple trash turned into quite the dandy looking city scape base, Bravo my good sir...Bravo!

Dude, love the bases!

the models on the bases don't contrast the base enough, though. Maybe go for more rust effects on the bases, and less metalic bits
\Great job!

Looks fantastic. Nice job.

Thanks guys, I'm glad you liked the simple little tutorial.

@kkk - (nice initials...) Yeah, originally I wanted them to kinda blend into the city environment with their weathered metal look - but that's not very good looking for SM's or table top miniatures in general for gaming purposes... kinda feel I need to just strip the lot and start over with a better paintjob that pops more.. :/