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I've been about the idea of buying myself some Malifaux lately, but had kept from the idea because I lacked the proper basing - Some sort of tiles or street-like texture. I don't own any traditional basing stuff other than sand, glue and paint, so my knowledge on basing is limited, which should explain this properbly stupid question - Can you use flamingo as basing? It's soft, true, but it's easy to carve and is easily available everywhere. If you can use, what would you do for the best effect?

I'm getting a great mental image but I've no idea what flamingo is in this context.

 Alex Kolodotschko wrote:
I'm getting a great mental image but I've no idea what flamingo is in this context.

I’m picturing some grim-dark blood soaked mini, could be an ork warboss, chaos lord in TDA, possibly even a primarch. Pan view down, and a pair of little pink plastic birds adorn the base…

Oh ! Differences in language! In Danish we call these things flamingo-plates or flamingo-isolation, but I don't actually know what their English name is... Still, long, pink birds as basing would be absolutely hilarious

Anyway, it's these things:


What would you say?

styrofoam is the english word, and most of your paints will disolve it, and I dont think it would work well simply because it wont last but I haven't ever really tried either.

Cool. Styrofoam. Flamingo's funnier, though.

I guess if my paint will dissolve it I can't use it, and even if I found some means to get it to not dissolve and I got to paint it, the model wouldn't really stick I'm afraid. Maybe I should just learn to use Green Stuff, huh?

IIRC if you paint it with thinned down white glue, it will protect it from the solvents in paints. But it’s still a bit fragile for anything that’s going to see use.

Cork board will probably be sturdier.

 The Wise Dane wrote:
Oh ! Differences in language! In Danish we call these things flamingo-plates or flamingo-isolation, but I don't actually know what their English name is... Still, long, pink birds as basing would be absolutely hilarious

Anyway, it's these things:


What would you say?

We call it styrofoam packing.

I would go with something different, that will melt in fumes from glue or spraypaint.

Yeah, styrofoam is not going to work unless you go out of your way to make it proof against super glue and spray accelerant.

Cork board on the other hand makes fantastic stone and its cheap. Doesn't make good roads though, its more of a natural stone.

The local Malifaux players have used multiple materials. One guy uses Popsicle sticks to make wood planking.

I think you could make convincing stone pavers using plastic sheeting cut into small squares and with a little gravel scattered around on top.

 Grey Templar wrote:
Yeah, styrofoam is not going to work unless you go out of your way to make it proof against super glue and spray accelerant.

Cork board on the other hand makes fantastic stone and its cheap. Doesn't make good roads though, its more of a natural stone.

The local Malifaux players have used multiple materials. One guy uses Popsicle sticks to make wood planking.

I think you could make convincing stone pavers using plastic sheeting cut into small squares and with a little gravel scattered around on top.

Well, I can get all that fairly easily. Might do that if I ever came around to it... Though this months entertainment-resources went to an Warhammer 40,000: Eternal Crusade Founders Pack, which is stupid, because I'm not sure if I get to play it when it goes out. Oh well, it's just about 25 quid anyway...

Just to be clear, it'll melt if you spray it, superglue it or plastic glue it.

It won't melt with glues that don't use harsh solvents, it won't melt with epoxy for example. It also won't melt with brush on acrylic paints. It can also be protected with a latex paint before spraying to protect it from the spray.

Personally I don't think it is a great basing material because it's light and soft, I like my basing materials hard and ideally heavy if they can be. But certainly you could use it if you want, keeping those things in mind. Some of my Tyranids I bought 2nd hand had some polystyrene used as basing materials, I removed some of it, but a lot of it was attached quite well (I assume they used epoxy or something) and so I ended up just leaving it and repainting it.