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I was wondering what colour you paint your base trim. I see that black is quite popular, although I go for the base colour of the base. I was wondering how popular the two options were.

Dark brown, the base coat for everything else. That way it's a seamless transition from edge to top instead of a black ring that stands out and looks unfinished.

I find black creates a stronger barrier between "model" and "not-model"; if I've painted the rim there's a sense that there's a circular slice of turf floating about, but if it's left black it doesn't call attention to itself.

The old goblin green trims looks quite bad compare to the new steel legion drab; the color of choice for most of my armies, I also use eshin grey on space deck/asteroid basing. I feel that painting or leaving it black looks unfinished. I also keep it very tidy too, no loose sand or brush strokes allowed.

I like retro Goblin Green base trim the best.

Whatever looks best for whatever it is I'm painting.

I use a nice dark brown, I think it's called dryad bark. My bases are all Badlands and arid terrain though so it pops. My shadow war alpha Legion team is the one exception, they're based with black trim, but that's because I thought it helped the Metallic blue scarab color of their armor pop with the snow bases.

The brown seems a lot less intrusive and disruptive, but maybe that's just me. I say go for a color that makes sense with your basing scheme and army colors.

Mine is based on whatever the colors of the army are.
My Sister's are white armor, blue robes so the base trim is a dark Navy blue. My Drukhari are a dirty yellow armor with scarlet red so the base trim is scarlet red. I find it helps to bind the army together.

I used to paint all of mine black but I find that to be a bit too stark anymore. I paint all of my 40k stuff vallejo dark flesh now

For 40k, I went with a light gray trimming to offset the dark-ish gray texture paint I use for the top of the base (see below spoiler for an example). I considered going with an earth brown for the trimming but that looked odd to me with the gray surface. I also tried a more neutral gray that matched the surface but didn't find that to my liking as blurred the side of the base too much with the top. I considered black, but most of army is painted black already. So, didn't want even more black. Sometimes, I do think my bases look a little unfinished partly due to the trim (even though I don't actually prime in gray) and partly since I usually don't care to add too much adornment to the base. My idea is that the base should at least have something more than a bare surface, but I try to go with something that doesn't draw any real attention to it (or away from the model) and is generic enough to not clash most tables terrain setups especially a winter table I sometimes use.

I usually don't base my models. I do however make sure the bases are cleaned up, usually by painting over any paint marks.

Black is almost always the color I use.

Depends on the model/army/unit/how the tops are finished. Sometimes just my whim....

A lot of my basses are indeed a flat black.
But in some armies like my IG I've color coded (& #'d) the bases by Co & platoon. So you'll see RED 1, squad RED 2, squad RED 3, Blue 1/2/3, Green 1/2/3, etc. That way if things get intermixed (like in melee) there's no confusion as to wich squads are wich.

I always paint them brown. Anything else doesn't look right to me.

Depends on the main base itself.

I find black is the best all rounder, but I do use other colours when appropriate. For me, I'd rather have a rim colour that either blends in perfectly with the main base, or is as neutral a colour as possible.

My Ultramarines have grey trims, the same colour as the main base.
My Guardsmen have brown, matching the main base.
Tanith, Grey Knights, Deathwatch and Genestealers all have black, acting as neutral colour.

Black.

Except the few stragglers in my fantasy armies still sporting the Goblin Green. Need to re-do them some day.

Mournfang Brown is my colour of choice.

In theory some neutral brown should work. I've tried it many times, but in the end I always end up repainting it black. I don't know why, but somehow anything except black looks wrong to me.

It would be interesting to see if there was any correlation between when people started playing and base color. I know GW has shifted over the years. Do we gauge what looks “right” from what we saw in our first WDs?

I usually change my mind. I used to dislike black rims but now I like them more because they make the model and base stand out more.

Black, though only because that's what works with my grey/light grey basing not because of any longstanding principle or anything.

 Nevelon wrote:
It would be interesting to see if there was any correlation between when people started playing and base color. I know GW has shifted over the years. Do we gauge what looks “right” from what we saw in our first WDs?

If you started circa 2nd ed. and got the starter paint sets you would have dark angel green bases if you got the 40k one or goblin green bases if you got the WHFB one.

I've seen this enough times IRL to confidentially say this is a fact.

I paint bases different colors to separate squads. I have some OCD about spreading out any duplicate models evenly to have the most variety represented in squads, so after I've divided each unit up, I base them a different color. In the case of my Death Guard, its a Brown, a Green, a Grey.

currently using black for most models, my orks are USA Tan Earth though, as they have a desert theme and it works better.

IG used to be dark grey, but switching to black to avoid having to outline unit markings.

have used other colours in the past though, my FoW armies have either Olive Drab or various earth brown tones, its usually a more saturated version of something on the base, then gloss varnished

I use XV-88 to sorta match agrellan earth