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Topic.

I'm cheap and use sand.

After seeing some of the bases on the army painter, flock seems to look a little bit better.

What do you all use?

Stolen beach sand.

I bought a pound of super fine sand from a Michaels. Then I also use some clean kitty litter to break up the monotony of the sand.

Sand. I've got various grits, additives (cork chips, gravel, etc.), and dressings (static grass, clump foliage, reindeer moss/floral lichen) for when I want to get fancy, but the core is always sand and the majority of my as of yet based models are on sand alone.

I use the super-fine ballast from a model train shop.

i have about 150lbs of un-used grout i saved from the dumpster.

I use a mix of "flock" items that I picked up at a hobby store that was going out of business years ago. All kinds of train scenery stuff at 50% off. I have based over 100 models since then and can likely do 200+ more.

Here is a shot of the Steel Legion models I based in August:

I use basing materials, gravel and flock, or resin bases. I absolutely hate painting sand.

I'd rather paint the base a solid colour, and then dress it with material. So the only time I'd use sand is if the base is meant to look like sand....!

When I started painting minitures I was wondering what to do with the bases. I originally thought I'd just paint them black with a fade to grey at the outside, as if it was a shadow.
Then one day I opened a pot of paint and it had dried leaving a solid, clumpy, mass in the bottom and I thought I'd try and save the pot for mixing paint or something. I scraped out the solid paint and piled it to one side of my board and carried on painting the models using a different paint.
Looking at this pile of dried paint it hit me, some of the smaller chunks looked like small rocks and if crushed right would look like sand /mud. So I now use the various sizes of dry paint to create mud, sand, rocks and boulders and occasionally add paintbrush bristles for clumps of grass.

I buy railroad ballast and mix them up for each different army. Only big based minis get any other special attention.

I have used river sand and it worked quite well. Now I use decorative sand and I'm very satisfied... Bought a 500g box in a mall for about 1 euro. You might want to check out your local shops.

I have a roughly arid/badlands type theme going for my bases & board. I use a mix of coarse sand, kitty litter and small craft rocks.

I thought kitty litter fumes were toxic for humans to breathe...?

sand, flock, grind up walnut shells, plaster cork, treebark... thats about it

Both. Neither. Depends. Sand from the local playground, flock, bits of cork...
This is my latest basing efforts.
PVA glue a chunk of cork to a plain base.
Paint the cork codex (dark) grey, paint the base light brown.
Wash the cork with black wash.
Drybrush the cork with fortress (lite) grey.
Glue figure to base (I always use testors model glue).
PVA sand to the base. Let dry.
Soak the sand in dark brown wash (Gryphon sepia). Let dry.
drybrush fortress grey around the sand.
PVA small areas of flock.
The plant thing are nylon bristles from a brush glued to the base then painted.



This was a previous basing: HO scale diamond tread cut to fit, some card stock as the boundary, and some plastic tube as pipes.

Is that P3 Beaten Purple and Skorne Red you used...?

I used to base my stuff, than did my whole GK army on cork.

Now I just use resin bases. $10 for 10 vs hours and hours = win in my book.

Sand + PVA = wondeful material.

with different grit sizes and amount of glue you can get all kinds of surfaces. Plus it sets rock hard.

Sand and static grass, no flock.

I'm going with the stuff you get for free.



Sand.
As said it look good when done as a theme.
(Shameless plug )

Dandruff mostly.


But I resort to sand whenever someone pours medicated shampoo on my head while I sleep.

Free stuff from the yard (put through a sifter) for dirt. Static grass for... grass. Snow effects for... (wait for it) ...snow.

I use a mix of 2 or 3 flocks when I am looking for a "grass" effect (light green, darker green and tan). It is more random with the colouration, so looks natural. Painting sand to look like grass just doesn't seem to look as good.

I use sand for all my bases. Cork is nice for large rocks to stand a miniature, cooking salt makes great small rocks, and finally, talc with PVA makes a decent snow.

Sadly, only a crappy photo taken with my phone

I bought a pot of sand from GW in my naive gaming youth....5 years later i still have some left.

I also have some bits of slate and some random rocks i use.

My necrons just get sadna nd rocks (dessert theme), my Chaos gets sand which is then painted black, grey and white for an ash looking theme.

For any other bits i tend to raid my bitz boxes for wreckage and rubble. Here's my latest effort:

I mix sand with saw dust and toss in a couple small chunks of charred wood for added effect. Then I cover the base in wood glue and pour the stuff on. Shake off, let dry, looks great, examples

 Thorn678 wrote:
I thought kitty litter fumes were toxic for humans to breathe...?

There are no "fumes" from kitty litter. The dust from kitty litter isn't good to breathe in, most is made up of Bentonite clay which is very fine and also swells when it gets wet. This means if you breathe it in, it settles in your lungs, swells and blocks passages. Same goes for most other kitty litters which may not be Bentonite based (the absorbancy is sort of mandatory).

Anyway - moving on...

What sort of "flock" are you talking about? That is really about as non-specific of a term as paint or glue. The old style flocking was mostly based on saw dust that was dyed green. A lot of the newer flocks are ground foam based. You also have some which are based on ground cork and other materials.

To make matters even worse - a lot of people use the term flock to refer to static grass and some scatter materials (Army Painter calls their Snow a flocking).

So - what to use? Don't limit yourself. Use what is right for what you are doing. Sand, dirt, gravel, flock, foam, other mineral materials, scatter, broken plaster or resin, static grass, cork, commercial ballast or talus, clump grasses as well as things like easy water, paint and putty.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
BTW - I don't have any in hand, but the pictures on the army painter website make it look like it is probably dyed sawdust.

I use Liquitex' resin sand texture. It costs about 12.00 for a jar of the stuff and will last me for about 200 25mm based minis or 4 large terrain projects. The stuff dries clear and primes and paints terrific. I apply it using a small dental tool on the minis or a putty knife on the terrain

I use a mix of sawdust, sand, fire ash, and scrapings from my rain gutter.

I tend to avoid sand (just tend to not care for the way it looks in relation to the model) and instead tend to sculpt mud and the like from spackle with extra bits thrown in to break it up.