How To Base Figures
By Steve Crofts

This Article came about after reading a couple of posts on the “help wanted” topic on the forums.

A few people were wanting to know how to base their figures, so without further ado I’ll give you my way of basing figures, I hope it is of use, and hopefully time permitting, I may expand on this further than just this basic guide.

Cue the Blue Peter music and away we go…..

Oh and forget the sticky back plastic!

You will Need

An Air tight Container

Emulsion

Building Sand

Budgie Grit

Static Flock

PVA Glue

Paint, (Acrylic)

A length of dowel or mixing stick

An old scalpel and blades

A ladle

See no sticky back plastic!



Mixing the formula

Pour the emulsion into your air tight container until it is about ¼ full.

Add to this, a ladle at a time the building sand, mix using the dowel when each ladle of sand is added. As the mix gets thicker add small amounts of water, not too much as you need to keep it at a nice wet cement like concentration.

Once this is mixed you are ready to begin basing.



How long does it keep? I hear you say, well I’ve had my mix in this air tight bucket over two years now and all I do is give it a stir every now and then and add a little water to the mix if it is getting a little stiff. 



Simple basing

Using the scalpel, get a little of the texture mix and start applying it to the base.

Once this is done, and the texture is still wet, add in small patches the bird grit, once a pleasing amount has been put on lightly press on theses patches just to firm it into the texture, it helps it to bond.

Now leave to dry.



When the mixture is dry turn the figure upside down and gently tap the bottom of the base, this will remove any loose grit.



Painting 

You should know be ready to start painting the “Earth” colour on your base.

I use a dark Earth colour for the first coat or like in this case Raw Umber. Paint the texture and the bird grit, and then leave to dry.



Second coat, this is dry brushed heavily onto the texture and the grit, the colour I am using here is Teddy Bear brown.

Highlight, this is done by lightly dry brushing the texture and the grit, the colour I’ve used here is Oat Meal.



That’s the “Earth” painted now leave to dry.

Flocking

Blob some PVA onto a palette, now add some water, it should end up with the PVA resembling thin paint.

With an old brush, paint patches on the base where you wish to have “grass”.

Dip the figures base in the static flock and cover it entirely and generously.

Now lift the figure out of the flock and give it a gentle shake to get most of the excess flock off, then turn the figure upside down and gibe the base a firm but gentle tap, this should get rid of the rest of the excess. Any left over excess can be blown off. If you find the blowing flattens the flock , no need to worry just turn the figure upside down again and give it another tap!

And that is the figure based!

I use this technique for all my basing, whether it is a single figures base or a massed figure base. I think the effect looks quite good.

As I said before I hope to expand on this subject a little further in the future and cover a variety of different additions to this method.

Please remember to mention Wargames Forum when contacting traders!

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