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TL;DR: Post your bases here! Tell us how you did it!

Hello venerable dakkaites (dakkians? dakkars?), I've recently gotten into the hobby I've been wanting to play since I was an impoverished 10 year-old boy who couldn't hold a brush (or his attention) steady for more than 5 seconds. For a man with less artistic talent than a Skaven Cartographer, my painted models' quality has gone from terrible tabletop to very nice tabletop.

All thanks to you guys and your countless helpful articles! Now that I bothered to register, I'll be sure to thank every one of you properly as I get the chance.

Anyway, I was wondering how you guys painted your bases. I've been killing myself trying to get a good combination of colours for my new army, but some of the ones I've tried look weird-- Like drybrushing Skull White over Snakebite Leather comes out as a really weird yellow highlight color for me.

Any advice on standard rocky painted bases would be really appreciated!

Personally, I call us 'dakkazens'

As to your question: I like doing my bases Codex Grey with grey railroad ballast over top. If you're basing before priming, then the colours vary.

I think that Bestial Brown is a good baseline colour for you to work from. A lot of good techniques just use [colour x] then a [colour x + Skull white] mix, if that helps.

I had the same trouble. I've just gone for heavy granulated sand with a Spray of Chaos black, with Codex Grey around the base and drybrushed over. It give a sort of Light Urban feel, but tends to fit in on urban and mountain theme boards. its also okay on jungle themes, just doesn't really work on deserts.

It isn't the most flash or original. But is easy to do and keeps thing nice and uniform.

Great, thanks guys. I can't wait to try both ideas out.

I use on my chaos some medium grade cinder ballast (so it's black). Then base with scorched brown, dry bush over with graveyard earth and then a final dry brush with bleach bone over that.

Then some summer meadow style flock onto that and paint the rim in graveyard earths, nice and simple turns out quite nice.

For my space wolves, they are on resin bases/slate where i basecoat the slate with black, then use a 50/50 mix of shadow grey and chaos black to base on that, followed by a shadow grey drybrush and a final (very light) space wolves grey drybrush, then some snow powder/flock is put on, and the rim is done with space wolves grey

Five of the disposable bases on my little "R&D" section of my table happen to already be basecoated Scorched Brown. I'll have to give your suggestion a shot. Thanks!

I base mine depending on the terrain they will mostly be fighting in. Since my game table is a bit of a wasteland/desert type pf theme, thats what they look like.
I cover the top of the base in elmers glue, and then dip it into a bowl of sand/gravel/sugar types. After that I paint it to match the ground. Its very easy and quick.
When I played chaos tho, they were based in an ash covered world. And I would put super glue on the base, and then dip that into a pile of ash/cigarette asses. It instantly dries rock hard, and best of all, what looks better for ash then... ASH!

KingCracker wrote:When I played chaos tho, they were based in an ash covered world. And I would put super glue on the base, and then dip that into a pile of ash/cigarette asses. It instantly dries rock hard, and best of all, what looks better for ash then... ASH!

THANK YOU!!! I keep looking at my horrifyingly overstuffed ashtrays (house of 4 smokers - we don't even have trays, we fill big coffee cans) and wanting to use the ash. I never thought of using superglue. I kept thinking "I can't imagine this working with PVA... could I dust the ash on then spray varnish to secure it? I don't know. I'd need to test it. Nah, too much work." Now I know what to do for ashes.

I spray base my bases white alongside my sprues of Orks. I then paint the base in two coats of Graveyard Earth. I do this by holding the top and bottom between my fingers and painting the ring around the base, then setting it down and painting the top while it lies on my table. After I assemble and paint the Ork, I do my basing to finish things up. I put on some PVA glue, move it about with an old brush so it's relatively even, then dip the base in a butter tub with a 50/50 mix of fine and medium Gale Force 9 basing grit. I find it's already in a nice, sandy color. I shake off the excess, and I put on a little more glue. I stick some Gale Force 9 parched straw static grass onto the new glew dab, shake the excess off, and blow on it. After all that my bases look pretty decent:




Hope that helps

oadie wrote:

KingCracker wrote:When I played chaos tho, they were based in an ash covered world. And I would put super glue on the base, and then dip that into a pile of ash/cigarette asses. It instantly dries rock hard, and best of all, what looks better for ash then... ASH!

THANK YOU!!! I keep looking at my horrifyingly overstuffed ashtrays (house of 4 smokers - we don't even have trays, we fill big coffee cans) and wanting to use the ash. I never thought of using superglue. I kept thinking "I can't imagine this working with PVA... could I dust the ash on then spray varnish to secure it? I don't know. I'd need to test it. Nah, too much work." Now I know what to do for ashes.

lol hey Glad to know someone other then me FINALLY liked that idea. Its so easy it almost makes you slowed. Also there is no smoke smell, which is another plus lol. Take pics and show some progress when ya get that done

My bases used to be all goblin green, no basing material (bleck).

Now however, I use sand/rock mix from GW, PVA/water layer on first, dip in the mix, let that dry, tap it clean, put another layer on top.
I then paint it black, semi watery works best to get in the cracks (that's where it needs it most for this anyways).
Then its an uneven (splotchy if you will, trust me) dark grey like Codex drybrushed, let dry, then a different pattern of drybrushed lighter grey like Fortress (or wtv).
Comes out a bit different on each base, dark enough to be a background for the model rather than foreground, and works with almost all colour schemes!

Oh and don't forget to paint the outside rim black, helps add to the muted feel of it.

Go go ash wasteland/dead world/toxic sand/urban siege debris!

A lot of mine aren't painted, but the ones I have done have been either sandblasting grit highlighted up to a light grey, or sprubble with the same paintjob.