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Hey guys,

Just after some advice on how i could go about making a particular style of base. I am thinking of making it appear so though my miniatures are standing atop floating icebergs or on a drifting glacier with water underneath.

Now how i was thinking about doing it was:

- Getting a regular base and removing the top, gluing the base to some plasticard to make it hollowed and sealed.
- Then using corkboard with smaller pieces at the base and increasing in size as height increases, covering that in spackle and shaping it be similar to a drifting peice of ice.
- Then doing a water effect of some kind around the base.

The advice i was after is:

1. Creating the actual 'iceberg' itself, do you think my method would work? Or is there another method you would suggest looking at?
2. How would i go about the water effect, i want the water to look icy and kind of deep water but to still have that water look to it.
3. Finally how would you paint the thing to look realistic?

Thanks guys.

Cut foam block to look like tip of ice burg , apply PVA glue on it , and paint it white .

Mix 2 part blue ink to 1 part green ink , with lots of water ,
apply it all over the ice burg .

Dry brush white on the ice burg , whiter and more intense as it leaves the water line.

Water Part:
Necron Abyss blue coat
mordian blue dry brush
green wash + water
apply gloss varnish on the whole thing.

If not shiny enough , apply epoxy resin

It would be neat to see a model on an iceberg but shoe high in water, like paint the base white, cover the base and fill the water effect stuff up to say the models shoes? That could be interesting. However I don't really have any advice to give you on making these bases.

Mk so looks like maybe blue/pink foam cut into various pieces would be a good substitute for the cork.

Was just looking for some good tutorials on using water effects to produce bases, i kind of want to be able able to see the "ice" through the water but for it to still have a watery effect.

Any more advice on possible paint schemes would be appreciated too

You could use slate painted as an iceberg. For the water, just use Water Effects.

Yeah just kinda looking for advice on how to paint them to get a realistic ice effect, and any tutorials on use of water effects considering i have never used them before.

Instead of doing a complicated 'cut out base, glue plasicard in, fill' type method, wouldn't it be simple to turn the non-slot bases upside down? The tapering would be different, true, but if you sprayed the thing white both sides then painted the 'base' (if it was a cup, the inside bottom) with your deepest shade colour, it could look good. Make it easier to control the water effects too.

Morgrim wrote:Instead of doing a complicated 'cut out base, glue plasicard in, fill' type method, wouldn't it be simple to turn the non-slot bases upside down? The tapering would be different, true, but if you sprayed the thing white both sides then painted the 'base' (if it was a cup, the inside bottom) with your deepest shade colour, it could look good. Make it easier to control the water effects too.

Pretty much what I was going to suggest, but I added a layer of sand, painted ice blue with a blue wash, and used a scrap of old floor tile for the ice (couldn't finish it tho, no water effects).

This is what I came up with (tested the idea before posting a suggestion) :


My theory is that the painted sand under the water effects might help imply depth.

Definately what i was after reaper, i might do a couple of both methods and see how i go

Thanks alot for trialling it

Happy to help, Winter. Besides, it gave me something a little different to fiddle with

Yeah, i think i have managed to work out it with the help here, just need to read some water effects tutorials and figure howi'll paint the 'ice berg' and then i should be sweet.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Might be a long shot, but does anyone know what products i could use that are available in australia to create water effects and tint them as i need?