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Ok Dakka, I need your expertise. I want to make a muddy base but I don't relish the thought of buying a pigment and real water.

I have plenty of plaster, plenty of brown paint, plenty of sand, rocks ect. What can I use to make this look great without having to spend money?

Plaster would start to break and crack. You can do this really simply with green stuff.. Coat the base in a layer, then add high and low points to the green stuff.. With another tool smooth the high and low points together.. Base coat once dry, and paint in browns.. Add a wash and also gloss coat to the brown paint.. Use static grass sparingly..

Ok, here's how I do it:

Mix PVA glue & sand to a paste consistency & dip/paint the base. Let it dry. Paint with PVA glue. Prime with a flat grey, Paint with bubonic brown-esque color, paint over while not completely dry with a thinned tan color, you want a bit of mingling between the paints in use. After this is about 2/3-3/4 dry, hit it with a heavy wash of seraphim sepia, let dry, repeat the wash about 3 times. It should come out about like so:

That looks awesome, I'm gonna try that on a small base tonight, and if all goes well onto the 120mm Colossal base

 darefsky wrote:
Ok Dakka, I need your expertise. I want to make a muddy base but I don't relish the thought of buying a pigment and real water.

I have plenty of plaster, plenty of brown paint, plenty of sand, rocks ect. What can I use to make this look great without having to spend money?

That is a shame because those two things mixed with plaster make some of the most convincing mud around. Most pigments are only a couple of bucks a pop and a huge bottle of realistic water is like $18 (it can be used to make more than just mud and will last you a very long time).

Here is an example: Secret Weapon Miniatures: Creating Realistic Mud

 ScootyPuffJunior wrote:

 darefsky wrote:
Ok Dakka, I need your expertise. I want to make a muddy base but I don't relish the thought of buying a pigment and real water.

I have plenty of plaster, plenty of brown paint, plenty of sand, rocks ect. What can I use to make this look great without having to spend money?

That is a shame because those two things mixed with plaster make some of the most convincing mud around. Most pigments are only a couple of bucks a pop and a huge bottle of realistic water is like $18 (it can be used to make more than just mud and will last you a very long time).

Here is an example: Secret Weapon Miniatures: Creating Realistic Mud

That's what sold me on making the base. The problem is I just dropped a boat load in new mini's and the wife will most likely kill me if I spend any more in hobby related items for the foreseeable futer.... So I have to do this with what I have on hand..

Luckily I have paint, PVA, sand, rocks, cork ect