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Hey, everyone.

I'm curious. I've gone and gotten a few friends and I into Flames of War, and we're looking to play. The thing is, while we have the miniatures, we do not yet have the paints.

Do any of you simply base the infantry stand, stick the miniatures on it, and then paint afterwards? I'm thinking about doing this, especially since at 15mm, it would be difficult to see any small imperfections that may be caused by such a configuration, especially if I make the stand itself look nice.

Any thoughts? Thanks in advance.

What I usually do is:

1. Glue the infantry to the bases, trying to make all the poses coincide with one another.

2. Spread Golden Coarse pumice gel over the base, covering up the figures bases as best as I can, let it dry over night. Or any other works, but Golden is what the craft store stocks

3. Prime

4. Paint (Battlefront has really good paint sets, all done by Vallejo, which I highly recommend.)

5. Flock and everything else.

I still haven't gotten around to finishing yet, but painting at that scale is not bad at all. I just do entire sets of say uniforms, finish those then go back and do another feature. It's better and quicker than finishing each base one at a time I think. For painting tips go here:

http://www.bardsabode.com/hobby/paintguides.html

Perfect! Thank you.

I dont do that.

Each figure is attached to the top of an old paint pot with bluetack and primed and then painted. It is then attached to the base.

If Im using Kerr and King bases the base is painted before I attach the figures.

This is done in blocks of 5 figures at a time.

Another way to "line" paint is to stick them on wide popsicle sticks. Paint, remove, then secure to finished base.

I prefer to add mine to the base, do the basework to conceal any figure stands, prime then paint.

So, I've got another question, if you guys don't mind me asking.

What is your preferred basing material? I've got several hobby stores and a Home Depot nearby, so I've been thinking either Drydex or the above-mentioned Golden Coarse.

Also, how do you spread the basing material? I was thinking a small plastic knife, or something along those lines.

For the pumice gel I use a flat metal sculpting tool, but anything will work. A lot of people use a paint brush but I found it was pretty tough for me to do that. Also I'd suggest something that has variable sizes, incase you want to spread the gel between the troops' legs.

The stuff also spreads much better when it is a little wet. Here is a topic I made on the BattleFront forums about the basing.

http://www.flamesofwar.com/Default.aspx?tabid=126&aff=52&aft=519353&afv=topic

powerslave84 wrote:For the pumice gel I use a flat metal sculpting tool, but anything will work. A lot of people use a paint brush but I found it was pretty tough for me to do that. Also I'd suggest something that has variable sizes, incase you want to spread the gel between the troops' legs.

The stuff also spreads much better when it is a little wet. Here is a topic I made on the BattleFront forums about the basing.

http://www.flamesofwar.com/Default.aspx?tabid=126&aff=52&aft=519353&afv=topic

Is this pummice gel available at standard stores such as Michael's, Ace Hardware, Home Depot, Loew's, etc...?

I've tried different materials for basing and it's been a bit more work than I deem worth it sometimes; this pummice gel sounds promising.

When I paint my miniatures, for my artillery crewman, I use PVA glue to glue them on cut-out squares of index card, that way I can bend it while holding it to get to hard-to-reach areas.
For rank-and-file infantry, I glue them to the base, unpainted and unprimed, then base the stand, then primer it.....then I just paint away.

I use beach sand and PVA. A friend of mine uses tile adesive and gets fantastic results.

ThirdUltra wrote:

Is this pummice gel available at standard stores such as Michael's, Ace Hardware, Home Depot, Loew's, etc...?

I've tried different materials for basing and it's been a bit more work than I deem worth it sometimes; this pummice gel sounds promising.

When I paint my miniatures, for my artillery crewman, I use PVA glue to glue them on cut-out squares of index card, that way I can bend it while holding it to get to hard-to-reach areas.
For rank-and-file infantry, I glue them to the base, unpainted and unprimed, then base the stand, then primer it.....then I just paint away.

Yep I got mine from Micheal's. It's on the isle with the artist acrylics and gesso, and also brushes I believe. Pumice gel is amazing, takes a while to dry and you may need to do a touch up, but the finished product is incredible, and self adhesive.


Edit: Forgot to mention Micheal's usually has 40% off coupons on their web page, so definitely print one out to save a nice chunk of cash.

ooo spreading pumice with a sculpting tool, that is a good idea. I've been using shards of plasticard to spread it with moderate effect (paintbrush was useless). Good idea, thanks!

powerslave84 wrote:

ThirdUltra wrote:

Is this pummice gel available at standard stores such as Michael's, Ace Hardware, Home Depot, Loew's, etc...?

I've tried different materials for basing and it's been a bit more work than I deem worth it sometimes; this pummice gel sounds promising.

When I paint my miniatures, for my artillery crewman, I use PVA glue to glue them on cut-out squares of index card, that way I can bend it while holding it to get to hard-to-reach areas.
For rank-and-file infantry, I glue them to the base, unpainted and unprimed, then base the stand, then primer it.....then I just paint away.

Yep I got mine from Micheal's. It's on the isle with the artist acrylics and gesso, and also brushes I believe. Pumice gel is amazing, takes a while to dry and you may need to do a touch up, but the finished product is incredible, and self adhesive.


Edit: Forgot to mention Micheal's usually has 40% off coupons on their web page, so definitely print one out to save a nice chunk of cash.

Goos deal! Thanks for the response....I'll have to go check it out and give it a try ( i have a scultping tool already so this looks promising).

Thanks for all the help, guys. I can't wait for the weather to warm up so I can finally start working on my 15th Scots!

The blog ring I started has a lot of good resources already, and a list of all the official Flames of War guides posted by battlefront:

http://flamesofwarubr.blogspot.com/p/tutorials-and-guides.html

A large Flat head Screwdriver works well for me!

Aldramelech wrote:I use beach sand and PVA. A friend of mine uses tile adesive and gets fantastic results.

Not to sound super paranoid, but doesn't beach sand have sand fleas in it? The only reason I don't just use the God-given gift of free sand is because I have heard that I could drag in sand fleas and get bitten by them or something like that.

Is this true or just nonsense?

I took a 1ltr plastic ice cream tub to the beach 20 odd years ago and filled it up. I'm still using the same sand today and I reckon I will be for another 20 years! In that time Ive based thousands of figures.

Ive never been bitten by a sand flea.

A word of warning to English readers, Taking sand from a beach in England is illegal.............

jmurph wrote:Another way to "line" paint is to stick them on wide popsicle sticks. Paint, remove, then secure to finished base.

I prefer to add mine to the base, do the basework to conceal any figure stands, prime then paint.

Rather than use popsicle sticks, I found that plastic cutlery works well, comes free with most fast-food meals, and neatly fits about a bases worth of men in a row with plenty of working room. Even works for the smaller vehicles as well. A bren carrier will fit on a spork at a push. (Not a sentence I ever thought I would be using.)


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Aldramelech wrote:I took a 1ltr plastic ice cream tub to the beach 20 odd years ago and filled it up. I'm still using the same sand today and I reckon I will be for another 20 years! In that time Ive based thousands of figures.

Ive never been bitten by a sand flea.

A word of warning to English readers, Taking sand from a beach in England is illegal.............

Its not the sand fleas you have to watch out for. Its the old dog-ends and bits of crab.

If you want to avoid arrest for "sand theft", just fill up a shoe. Instant deniability. (I suspect that you would have to take a conspicuously large amount of sand, measurable in at least kilos, before anyone really cared though.)