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So. I recently got a...

Well, let's say my rich friend with no clue of the hobby got me a freaking wraithknight, despite me not playing Eldar. It's still a kick-ass model, and I'd love to show it off to him when it's done, but to do that I want it looking amazing, and that starts with the base. I've not got a lot lying around, a couple of spare parts from some IG HWT, but nothing else. Like most of my models, the base is gonna be rubble, all stacks of rocks and metal, so, tips?

Well my first suggestion to you is to draw your base with the model and base to scale.

figure out you want to do, what kinda focal points angles and stuff to draw attention to the model while being complimenting the base as well.

how dynamic you want it and so on.

also use a gak ton of blu tack to preposition things before gluing things together.

If you put a fallen guy on the base it established scale well. I did this on two of my Riptides.



Green has a little diorama on her base complete with a wall, some fallen combatants and a survivor hiding behind the wall, and Pink has a wounded Space marine crawling towards a shrine. No mistaking they are large ladies with that going on.

Don't forget structure when designing a dynamic pose, it is sad to have to reinforce a pose because it starts sagging because you gave it too little support trying to look dynamic. I had this trouble with the Blue Riptide.

For quick and easy, I'd say take the resin route (ie. Secret Weapon miniatures, Elrik's Hobbies, etc).

Otherwise, do something "diorama-esque" for a display piece

For an Imperial Knight, I once covered the oval base it comes with in sandpaper (glued down). Once that was dry I painted it up to look like tarmac.

Then I got some thick card and cut out the letters "NO PARKING". I then used this as a stencil for te base, making sure that the whole stencil wasn't over the base but enough of it was to give the impression of what the words were.

I used a large brush to lightly build up a bright yellow like road writing.

Looked alright!