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So i started painting warhammer and is waiting for the different lockdowns to end so my almost 500 point army that i have assembled, can start playing. in the mean time im painting by ork army.

now the thing is, i like the mars base look, so i went with that. now i want some rocks, yet i cant just pick some rocks from a forest bottom because no rocks seemingly come in "Australian red" unless you live near australia or some other place with red rocks. I live in scandinavia so the best ill get is flint or uninteresting colored rocks that wouldnt fit.


so what i need is to go out and get some rocks, but what do i do then?

can someone who is good at making bases put me through the process here.


my bases are either Martian ironearth or Martian ironcrust so i need a color for my rocks that i pick up that fits the martian ironcrust/earth. but what color would that be? What color fits best for me to paint such rocks? Do you dillute it to thin it first or do you paint the rocks like you would a model?
and thats a rock i mean thats sort of easy but whats the process with small cork pieces? i dont have one large cork thing i break apart i bought many smaller cork pieces, how do i even paint them? painting them individually by hand would be like painting large pieces of sand.

Do i put down my martian ironcrust, then glue the cork on to the base with martian ironcrust, and THEN find some paint color that fits and seriously thin it so it can get in to the small nooks and crannies? or do i buy the "airbrush" version instead which should already be very thin?

i already made the dumb mistake of having a white base (was using contrast paint) on some gretchin so when the martian paint split apart as it should it revealed the white underneath, so that kind of sucked. id like to avoid making silly mistakes like that. thats why im asking for advice for the process as to put things ON to your bases coated with some sort of texture paint. and in my case, Martian ironearth is a pretty hefty color, unlike astrogranite which could fit any given darkish rocks from the forest bottom.

thanks in advance.

Ps. here are some grots i made, my first grots in my first army (ive made some boys previously but these are my only ones with actual texture on their bases). is my texture work terrible? and yes, i know theres white underneath my martian ironearth, as i said earlier, i fethed up.

You could try to spray paint the cork pieces, also if you haven't already you might want to hit the bases with a black shade paint, like Nuln Oil. Also you could spray paint the rocks along with the cork bits. GW doesn't really have a spray in the color of your bases, but I don't even use GW sprays. I mostly use Rust-Oleum for priming and such. So any regular spray paint could work, as long as you're not working with foam.

You want to make the texture of your base before applying the ironearth. Use whatever you want for this, rocks, sand, Cork. Once this is done, paint that textured area with a regular paint in a Martian red tone, then apply the ironearth on the clear areas, with a little overlap to help it all fit together. Once they are both dry and your crackles are in, you can drybrush with a light orange or fleshtone to tie it all together. Doing it this way will give a base that looks natural, with rocky areas and cracked areas like you'd see in real life. You don't want to apply Cork or rocks over the top of the iron earth as it will look weird and unnatural.

 queen_annes_revenge wrote:
You want to make the texture of your base before applying the ironearth. Use whatever you want for this, rocks, sand, Cork. Once this is done, paint that textured area with a regular paint in a Martian red tone, then apply the ironearth on the clear areas, with a little overlap to help it all fit together. Once they are both dry and your crackles are in, you can drybrush with a light orange or fleshtone to tie it all together. Doing it this way will give a base that looks natural, with rocky areas and cracked areas like you'd see in real life. You don't want to apply Cork or rocks over the top of the iron earth as it will look weird and unnatural.

i see. thank you ill try and do that. sadly i have already put ironearth on my grots bases (but luckily i still have orks left that needs their bases made). For my grots i guess ill just put maybe some vegetation on it then.


What do you consider a martian tone? i used Mephiston red but i dont know if it fully works. its a bit ... more red

I'm not familiar with the current GW paint range names, but "Martian" reds are generally more muted - more of a 'brick' or 'rust' red. If you can't or don't want to buy a new paint, just mix in some light brown/tan (possibly even a touch of light grey) until it starts to match the color of your current bases.

Yeah, that basically ^ good practice for mixing paint.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
You can also just apply the ironcrust to the areas you want texture, then apply the ironearth to the other areas, again with a little overlap/mixing while still wet to get a nicely flowing base. This is probably better for smaller bases. It's how the earth/crust paints were designed to be used.