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anyone have any experience using actual crystal pieces \ point, or mineral formations for basing, and a reasonable source for them?

My searching so far has some etsy and ebay stores but I'd love to hear and see any previous successes.

I've seen a few armies that have tried it.
I thought it was awful.
There's a reason we spend time learning to paint rocks to look more like rocks.

It seems like attaching them properly would be the biggest issue.

mostly if you super glue any transparent gems it can end up clouding (i think.)

Iv seen them on some display plints but overall i dont think it would look very good on a small gaming model

now casting them in resin and painting might be worth while.

I'd say make your own. They will fit better with the look of your model IMO.

A quick vid of how to make Necron crystals (not mine) on youtube is a good start: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z-28oD6arJw

I tried this and ended up with the below base.



Good luck with it

I wouldn't use real crystals, unless you plan on painting them. Natural, unpainted objects don't blend very well with painted ones.

Of course, if you're painting the crystals, that defeats the purpose of using them to begin with. So just go with resin ones instead. Heck, you can even carve the from sprue

I think gluing crystal to a base would also make it very heavy. In my opinion I think man made/painted crystals like the above look much nicer.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 D4V1D0 wrote:
I'd say make your own. They will fit better with the look of your model IMO.

A quick vid of how to make Necron crystals (not mine) on youtube is a good start: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z-28oD6arJw

I tried this and ended up with the below base.


Good luck with it

Love how you made this a display and usable piece, came up really fantastic. I need to do more projects like these.