Art De La Guerre

[KevinD]

I’m in the early stages of painting up a new army and am interested in ideas to improve the aesthetic appeal of my basing.

Generally I find that a well done basing scheme can really make an otherwise ok to good looking army really pop.

My current system for temperate or tropical armies is (green) flocking on green paint, sometimes with rocks, grassy plants or bushes added. For desert or arid armies it’s usually (rocky) flocking on tan paint. In the past for arid armies I’ve also used built up layers of a commercial product containing tan paint mixed with sand for desert armies but getting something I can match to this is a serious drawback when rebasing those armies’ infantry for ADLG (or whatever might come next).

What sort of basing schemes have you seen that represent an improvement over the paint (or pva), flocking and some grass/bushes? Hopefully it would not be too challenging or represent a massive increase in the time needed to base an army but would add to the army’s aesthetic appeal.

[Black Prince]

I have have started using these, first I use the textured paint, the wash, then dry brush. Finally stick on some static grass tufts.

https://citadelcolour.com/videos/technical-paints/

[KevinD]

[Mike Bennett]

I use an earthy coloured wood filler.  I then immediately add static grass whilst the filler is still wet.  I then add other material and spray varnish.

So a lazy approach avoiding two stages; application of both a base colour and glue

https://www.ronseal.com/products/high-performance-wood-filler/. This shows natural and dark brown as available.  I have also seen mahogany.  

I did consider letting the filler set and adding other colouring, washes and highlights before adding glue and the static grass, but did not think it worth the extra work.  Especially as I like all armies on consistent bases for morphing between them.

[daveallen]

Two quick and simple methods of texturing bases.

First very very simple:

Take some builders sand (the kind with gravel in it) and pass it through a sieve or colander to remove the chunkier bits of gravel. Mix in some static grass. dilute some EvoStik wood glue with water (about 30% water and 70% glue) slop it onto the base around the figures/models then dump the mixture on it -





Next a bit more complicated. Get some Javis "dark earth scatter", prepare the base as above, but leave patches for static grass, tip the scatter on the base. Leave to dry then brush over with very dilute EvoStik wood glue (at least 80% water) to fix it. Dry brush with white paint. Use diluted wood glue to stick static grass in the bare patches. Add "snow" terrain effect stuff to add variety -


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Putting the ink into incompetence

[vexillia]

Here's a few of my recipes:

• Arid (Desert)- https://blog.vexillia.me.uk/2022/02/15-mm-arab-conquest-slingers-forged-in.html
  
• Arid (Steppe) - https://blog.vexillia.me.uk/2008/09/15-mm-basing-technique.html
  
• Temperate - https://blog.vexillia.me.uk/2020/08/15-mm-acw-confederate-infantry-finished.html
  
• Temperate (Alternative) - omit the coat of tan earth from the above using the natural colour of the sand.
  

The biggest visual difference is the variation in height between the fine foam/short static grass & the different sized tufts. I'm always surprised at the difference it makes. Finally, I'm a big fan of black edged bases (see ACW recipe) but as I don't often use MDF bases it's not an option for me most of the time.

Can't post pictures of all of them as the forum software is out of date and doesn't support the new Google image format.

Hope that helps?
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Martin Stephenson

[Hazelbark]