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A little while back I settled on a desert pink colour scheme for a small detachment of Scions I'm doing for 40k (asked about how to achieve this colour and the forums were really helpful) and now I'm sitting down and I'm trying to figure out what to do with the base colour scheme and terrain.

I think the problem I have is that I want the soldiers on bases where their (desert pink) camo would look plausibly effective, but at the same time it would be nice to have a contrasting/complimentary base so as to try and not make the army look to monotone and drab. This was something I was tolerant of in my desert Cadian army (sand coloured infantry on sandy bases) but I want to try and be a little more considered with my Scions.

For reference, apparently blue-greens and turquoises are what is opposite on colour charts that I've looked at. I was thinking of having perhaps a reddish desert ground with some blue-green plants perhaps? What do you guys think?

You could try a darker brown rock perhaps? Or even concrete for a desert settlement with sand drifts

 Flinty wrote:
You could try a darker brown rock perhaps? Or even concrete for a desert settlement with sand drifts

That's not a bad shout, the concrete would give me a cooler choice of colours to use. Thanks for the suggestion!

Yeah, you probably want to go in the direction of light/dark contrast vs. color contrast. Keep your colors in the same yellow/brown family as the uniforms but change the saturation and brightness. If you have uniforms where the dominant color is a light sand then do bases that are mostly dark brown and rocky with just enough patches of sand visible that the color reference is clear. Or you can flip it and have sand be the dominant color on the bases but have the models wearing sand colored fabric with a contrasting armor color (since the storm trooper models have the armor color dominant).

You could do dark brown rocks with build ups of pinky sandy dust around them.

These are some really good ideas, I think I might just have had an idea which combines what's been suggested; have the sandy base but darken and mute it, and then highlight the models effectively

Some basing tips from 'Mr. Two Thin Coats' himself...