As some of you requested I made this small tutorial on my basing scheme for my JUNGLE lizards! Hope you like it and find it useful. Its really a very basic scheme but I find it to work great for my Lizardmen. Step Zero: Starting with black painted bases. These ones I mixed a bit of sand and static grass to the Black paint itself to give some more texture. But as I will cover the most of the base perhaps this is not really really needed, I just like the effect it creates. Step One: Paint the Base in a brown colour. I use a mix of 2 colours to give a more natural "muddy" look. Just paint and blend the colours directly on the base and brush. Don't need to be very clean as we will clean the bases later. How they look when dry.
Step Two: Apply the Tufts. This is where the line between my professional life and hobby life starts to get fuzzy, because I work with the company that makes these excellent tufts. But I like very much to use our product and believe it to be very user friendly and provide good results with little effort. So... a bit of shameless promotion on GamersGrass Tufts. I start with the bigger tufts (12mm tall) and I use 2 colours to give some realistic variation on the colours. Then I add the flowers and shrubs. (on these larger tufts and the shrubs I like to add a little PVA glue to the base of the tuft, just to make it adhere better.) Then I pretty much cover almost the rest of the base with the small tufts (MOSS) (And these I do not add any glue to them.)
Step Three: Clean the edges of the bases. I paint the edges in black to clean the mess I did when painting in brown. And how they look when joining the ones I did previously! They come from the JUNGLE! Hope you like them and that in someway you find this usefull for your basing.
Yes! Some old fifth edition saurus with modern weapons and standard... I also still have about 30 from back in those days. But mine are not painted up so nicely!
Oh. But looks quite modern! the original 5th edition saurus spears look quite clumsy compared to toothpicks!
As promised the rock basing tutorial! PART ONE First the rocks! I use raw cork for the best effect... I like to puncture the large pieces with a screw driver and a hammer and then brake them appart. Then choose the good pieces that I want: And test fit the model! (yes! the model is a lizard, at least this part of the model is...) Then sand the base of my pieces to make a nicer flatter bottom part. (also helps with gluing the pieces to the plastic base) Super glue all the way! I use a full bottle (3gr) of super glue on this base. (I buy them in my Chinese store near my place for .25€ each...) It glues the pieces onto the base and also impregnates the cork making it very hard once the glue dries. (this glue is very very thin, so all texture is maintained)
Part TWO, let the mess begin! Disclaimer! This part can be a little messy if you do it in a small space... Mix sand, PVA glue and Acrylic paste. I find that if I mix just the PVA and sand the final texture will not be very sharp, as the glue when dries, smooths a little and in does not give the desired effect... So I also add the Acrylic paste to the mix! MESSSS!!!! More MESSS! And look at the target base hoping for the best... (the superglue has not dried at this stage... but who cares!!!) Add the mixed paste! .... now the whole thing takes some hours before I dry, so the tutorial will continue after it is all dried...
The base dried over night... Continuing... PART THREE, painting... Base is primed, and then suffers highlights using the airbrush to make the rocks stand out. Then a general brown wash is applied to blend all together and start to create the natural dirt/mud effect: A second brown wash is applied on the dirt parts leaving the rocks clean: Then I start to work on the small river: ...and realized that I do not have the water effects to continue... So the Tutorial continues next part.... (need to go and buy the water thingy)
And adding some water effects (Vallejo Still Water) and some Vegetation (GamersGrass Tufts and Shrubs) this is the final effect... Hope you like it...