40K Miniature Basing For Beginners

After buying and painting miniatures for about fifteen years, it strikes me as remarkable that I’ve only bothered to make a handful of custom bases. Even more notably, I now realize I avoided it because I was a bit intimidated by the process—even the simple sand and glue approach. There’s probably no good reason for this, and this post isn’t about my psychological reticence to basing, so I’ll say this last bit and move on:

This is [yet another] brief tutorial describing an easy method to make custom bases for Warhammer [and other] miniatures, using simple techniques and easily acquired materials.

Right then. First, a picture, because you always need a “before.”

As can be seen, I have a Dark Angel army and I am now working to bring its Deathwing Company into full operation after a year of professional, domestic and social upheaval that has distracted me from the hobby. Part of that process involves establishing the fluff around my force – which I plan to mold into a full second founding, the “Angels Ascendant,” but there will be more about them later. For now, the point is that I’m building out force organization charts and establishing squad insignias, etc, so it’s high time that I belly up to the [kitchen] table and give these guys some legitimate bases.

In the vein of making this a comprehensive approach to building my army up, I want the bases to be an aesthetic test-run for the table that I intend to make next year. Furthermore, I want the bases to reflect – at least vaguely – the existing terrain I own and to look plausible when held next to other bases in the same squad, even to the point of coordinating features according to likely deployments formation.
Thusly, I will be creating a grayish-brown wasteland motif with some sludgy, polluted liquid in the lowlands, and dryer, blue sand and stone in the highlands. The Imperial cruiser below will likely have crashed into a highland section of my imaginary table:

BEGIN TUTORIAL: Supplies
I initially gathered these supplies for my endeavor. As I worked, I wanted to add different textures and decided to add some rough-ground coffee grinds into the sand and eventually bothered my girlfriend for some shiny, colorless nail polish for the polluted run-off. I did not end up using the corks this time.

STEP ONE: Planning

First, I planned out the sort of features that I wanted to include and roughly sketched with a pencil where my models’ feet would need to be glued.

Observation 1A: Accidentally letting glue and sand get into the spots where feet are supposed to be was unwelcome, but presented me with options to make a more interesting base by trouble-shooting the error. I don’t encourage winging it, because you want your mini to be secure, but a little flexibility moving forward may serve you well.


STEP TWO: Glue Stuff to Your Base

Next, I used a piece of wax paper for a mixing surface and created a solution of water and glue, with roughly 1 part glue to 2 parts water.

Observation 2A: This does not need to be an exact science; I continually added glue or water to this supply with general disregard for the ratio and found that it worked fine as long as some glue was involved. In fact, I didn’t even mix the two very much, choosing, in later steps, to use more or less watery parts of the mixture whenever I felt like it might strengthen a hold or let the glue seep into a crack more easily, etc. Ultimately, it seemed pretty fool-proof, so don’t over think it.

Anyway, in this step, I used a cheap plastic kids’ brush to apply the glue-water to the base where I wanted, and then sprinkled sand and grounds onto the glue. When I got more comfortable with how the glue was behaving, I began dipping the bases, or setting them into a container and gently shaking the sand and grounds onto them. Again, not an exact science. After the first coat, you can apply additional layers of glue and particles where you want to raise the ground a bit, and directly paint glue onto larger rocks or objects before placing them.

Observation 2B: White glue won’t dry as quickly as superglue, but it appears to take hold enough for there to be almost no wait-time between layers - maybe wait 30 seconds before you start painting more glue on and, as long as you are gentle, you shouldn’t have many particles pulling away. If you do, I guess you’ll need to use more glue in your solution, or use smaller particles, or find a better blog.


STEP THREE: Drying & Base-Coating

I’m not particularly impatient, but I’m close enough to death that I don’t want to be waiting for white child’s glue to dry all night. Thanks to my girlfriend and my past dalliance in long hair, a blow-dryer was on hand to expedite this process. While I’d encourage caution not to blow your bases across the room, 30 seconds or so under the hair dryer seemed effective enough for me to move on with the confidence that the stuff on my bases wasn't going anywhere without some convincing.

However, I’m risk-averse and decided that a moderate base-coat of primer would help to keep everything in place and provide a much better surface for painting – thusly I cannot speak to the absorbency of coffee grounds – specifically chicory.

Again, I did not want to wait for the primer to dry, so I brought the blow-dryer back out.

Observation 3A: Before anything settles too solidly, and before you base-coat, you’ll want to be sure that your miniature fits onto your base as intended. This is the last chance to make really easy changes to your base, so double-check before moving forward!


STEP FOUR: Foundation Colors & Surface Glue

Next, I laid down the foundation colors that I wanted in each base (for me this was mostly Citadel’s Charadon Granite with patches of Calthan Brown near my sludge streams). I also added a brown wash liberally at this point to establish depth and get a sense for the lighting that I wanted to simulate.

Observation 4A: I recommend using a larger, old or otherwise expendable brush for this. In many cases, the terrain you are creating will have jagged edges and be fairly rough on a brush, especially if you don’t want to spend too much time just getting a foundation paint onto it.

In addition to paint, I applied more glue-water to the bases where I wanted to create a smooth surface that would become my stream of sludge. This process sometimes involved waiting and/or blow-drying, as I wanted to apply several layers in order to raise the level of the liquid (as shown below) while still allowing the glue to dry quickly and colorlessly-if you use too much glue or don’t dilute it, you will likely get a white or very cloudy result.

STEP FIVE: Shading and Highlights

This is probably the least “new” step in basing for a person who paints miniatures. Use washes or darker paints as needed to create the shadows and crevices you desire while using lighter colors to create peaks.

Observation 5A: Experiment with white as a highlight. I was a longstanding holdout against creating lighting effects that veered too far into glaring white or shadowy black, because I figure miniatures are always going to have light on them to accentuate things for me. However, over time I've stubbornly come to recognize that light sources, which cast shadows or create glare on a life-sized thing, will provide a lighting effect that is too consistent to accurately impart these details on a miniature, which is diminutive compared to the light source. As such, shadows and glare should be created and fun should be had.


STEP SIX: Details and Finishing

Similar to step five, this is mostly about tweaking your base to look the way you want. I sometimes chose to add more glue at this point and ultimately decided to paint my streams with Tin Bitz, because the glue alone wasn’t creating the effect I wanted.

Below, you can see the changes in four different bases throughout the process. Notably, the bases in which I was using glue were a bit slower-going, so you can see that they were generally a step behind.

And here is a (poorly photographed) glimpse of the before-and-afters! In the next couple months, I hope to be moving to a new kitchen table and workshop, where I’ll make a new light box, so please bear with me for now!

That's all for now, I'll be back with some more miniature work soon!