Basing your miniatures is really simple. Basing, if you are not familiar with what I mean, is adding textures, terrain, and/or plantlife to the base of a miniature to create a setting for the miniature. It can really make a big difference in the overall finish and polish of a mini.
1. After painting the minis they were ready to be based! I painted around the feet with a dark grey color so I don't have to put the basing paste right up to the feet of the mini (though sometimes it happens anyway):
2. I start with a paste like a Vallejo Earth Texture or the Citadel Texture paints (Stirland Mud, etc.) applied directly to the base. In this case Vallejo Dark Earth. Apply with an old brush and in a fairly thick layer. Thick enough to obscure the base underneath and to build some "ripples" or waves of texture into the ground.
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| Leaving the paste to dry for several hours. |
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| Adding in from the edges. |
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| Other basing option examples: Vallejo Thick Mud, Citadel Ironeasrth, Astrogranite, and Agrellan Badlands |
3. Before the paste is dried, you can embed some "rocks" like slate, cork rocks, or sand. Use a small dab of some PVA (Elmers) glue to secure these to the base.
4. After that has dried, dry brush it with a lighter color, then wash with a shade if you like. I used Citadel Longbeard Grey to dry brush, and made a wash out of Nuln Oil, Agrax Earthshade, and Medium at 1-3-2 ratios.
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| A fat drybrush, loaded with paint then dragged across paper towel and back of hand to get most of paint off, but not all. |
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| After drybrushing |
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| After Drybruhing |
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| Slate glued down. |
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| Slate after drybrushing! Detail appears like magic :) |
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| 1-3-2 ratio for my wash this time... |
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| This shows a Warg after the first drybrush and after wash, whil ethe wash is still wet. I went back and re-drybushed just a bit to get the highest highlights lighter again later. |
5. I choose to add some Army Painter battlefield grit - black, brown, grey or tan could all have worked. I choose black. The black is hard to see, so I tried to point it out with what turned out to be tiny pick lines with even smaller pink arrows at the end... :)
6. All that is left is to glue down some grass tufts from Citadel or Army Painter using super glue and then paint the rim.
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| Array of products used for grass and foliage |
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| Super glue and tweezers for the tufts |
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| Example of tucking a tuft under a rock |
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| Example of tucking a tuft under a rock |
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| Larger tuft example |
7. One optional step before grass tufts is gluing "static grass" or "grass flock" if you want to fill in more of the ground with foliage and grass. White Elmer's PVA glue, watered down a bit, works great and you just sprinkle on the flock or static grass, then shake off the excess.
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| Extra grassy Hobbit base |
8. Then you paint the rim base, let that dry, and spray with a lacquer - like Testor's
Dullcote and you are ready to go!
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| Finished bases (rims painted with Graveyard Earth from Citadel) |
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| Finished JiME miniatures! |
It goes remarkably quickly and the end result is so fantastic!
I'll add pics from the process for Journeys through Middle Earth soon! [EDITED 6/17/19-pics added]
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