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So I'm planning my cadian army and am thinking about bases now. I imagine them in a big mess of churned up earth, think ww1 on the somme.

I'm going to be using GW texture with scorched grass and the odd bit of barbed wire.

GW offer 2 options which with my indecisiveness is making me pause to long on it! The options are stirland mud or backfire earth, washed with agrax earthshade and dry brushed with terminus stone.

What do we think and has anyone any examples?

Did you consider Vallejo (or other) textures? They're much cheaper per volume so if you're basing an army it'll save you a lot. If you like a texture but not a colour they're easy enough to paint over. They'll set you back about $12 iirc for 200ml rather than the 12ml pots from GW. I have a number of them (missing about 3 from memory) and took some pics of them wet, dry and shaded so you can see the different colours and textures.

Thank you for the other option, I know GW is more expensive but its my only option if I want to go and buy from a store in person,which I like to do.

I think my issue with the stirland mud is the drybrush colour, it takes the muddy look away from it.

 Yonan wrote:
Did you consider Vallejo (or other) textures? They're much cheaper per volume so if you're basing an army it'll save you a lot. If you like a texture but not a colour they're easy enough to paint over. They'll set you back about $12 iirc for 200ml rather than the 12ml pots from GW. I have a number of them (missing about 3 from memory) and took some pics of them wet, dry and shaded so you can see the different colours and textures.

Spoiler:

I think he's looking for an easy way to texture his bases, I've not yet seen a store that sells the Vallejo texture without terrible delivery.

Are your Cadians painted in the standard scheme (khaki fatigues, OD armor)? If so, the redder Blackfire Earth might compliment them nicely. Based purely on the look of the textured paints, alone, I prefer Stirland Mud, though. Also seems more plausible to me, as the color of the Blackfire Earth suggests clay content high enough to change the soil's texture and inhibit plant growth. Find a better drybrush color, and I think The Mud is your winner.

To each their own of course, thought I'd mention it since I had experience with them. I ordered mine from the UK initially since at the time they were impossible to find in Aus. SnMStuff in the UK is pretty good, I've bought from them before. The link is to their Vallejo texture range. You're looking at £3.90 for 100g-1kg by the looks.

edit: £5.75 because royal mail don't like shipping liquids anymore ; /

 oadie wrote:
Are your Cadians painted in the standard scheme (khaki fatigues, OD armor)? If so, the redder Blackfire Earth might compliment them nicely. Based purely on the look of the textured paints, alone, I prefer Stirland Mud, though. Also seems more plausible to me, as the color of the Blackfire Earth suggests clay content high enough to change the soil's texture and inhibit plant growth. Find a better drybrush color, and I think The Mud is your winner.

Pretty much standard scheme. The backfire earth did remind me more of a high clay content soil.

I'm thinking maybe a brown or longbeard grey to highlight the 'mud'?

Get a tube of Liquitex Coarse Texture gel, and maybe a little of the modeling paste from them. It takes paint on its own, spreads a bit nicer than GW texture paint, and you can mix it with whatever color you want to mix up your own texture paint if you don't want to just paint the dried texture gel later. It also cleans up easily.

Examples:


The plain stuff on the base

and after a coat of paint



That's the texture paste -> Dryad Bark -> Argax Earthshade -> Baneblade brown (drybrush). The white blob is just glue.

The modeling paste spreads like frosting and pretty much dries as-is (some cracking happens though), leaving some cool effects.