As soon as I completed the Wardroth Beetle I turned my attention to the base. I wanted to complete the base before moving on to Alarielle herself.
I was super excited to do the base as it gave me the chance to get more experience with lots of scenery building techniques which I've been picking up via YouTube. So, lets go through the design and steps involved in achieving the design!
As mentioned, I wanted to test out a few scenery techniques. Primarily these were:
·using Scultamould,
·using Rocks cast from Woodland scenics moulds,
·Painting the rocks with the leopard spot techniques,
·Using clear resin for a water pool,
·Applying LukesAPS woodland floor scatter flock.
I learnt many of the above technique watching Lukes APS videos, check out his channel here.
First of all, I wanted to raise the Beetle up a little bit so the plaster cast rock had enough clearance under the model. After that had been finalised, I cracked open the sculptamould!
Once the sculptamould had been on the base for 5-10 minutes or so, I used a wet finger to smooth out the material.
I didn't seem to take any photos for much of the build, so let me cover the steps taken. Before the scultamould dried and became hard I added various little details like the tree stump, various larger rocks and root details. I then added various size rocks and sands and glued them into place with superglue. After that stage, I began the painting! I airbrushed the entire base with Vallejo Black Primer. Then, I painted the rocks with the leopard stop technique and the soil with a cheap Hobbycraft brown paint.
Then it was time to add the static grass and other texture... First of all, I coated the base with PVA and applied some Warlord Autumn Static Grass. Then I stuck some clump foliage, lichen and daffodil flowers with PVA. Then I sprinkled on some LukesAPS forest ground cover clock and finally some green leaf folliage. to seal these layers I applied multiple coats of watered down PVA and Isopropyl alcohol. The picture below is at this stage - if you look closely you can see how soaked the static grass is!
The final step was to add the Woodlands Scenics Realistic Water effects. This photo was taken after the first pour of resin. It took 3 pours to get the level I wanted. I think I could have done it in less, however, I didn't want to overdo it and ruin the base.
Bit of an unplanned project this one... when moving some models around in my display case, my Imperial Knight fell off its base! I wasn't very upset by this; I never really liked how I originally based the Knight anyway! (original base can be seen here) What this occurrence allowed, though, was for me to strip the base down and do something better!
I wanted to go with an urban rubble style base and I used the below video as inspiration.
Using the above video in combination with the ForgeWorld modelling masterclass book, I followed the steps detailed below:
Step 1: To get some additional verticality, I glued some spare lozenge shaped bases onto the Knight base. These were placed where the Knights feet sit on the base. Next up I covered the base with DAS modelling clay and, whilst the clay was still pliable, I placed various items of detail such as a Bolt Gun, Rhino door, Chaos Marine backpack.
Step 2: I covered the base with PVA and applied various sizes of grit, stones and sand to create the main texture on the base. Once the initial cover of PVA had dried, I applied a further diluted coat to fix everything in place.
Step 3: I primed the base with Vallejo Black Primer through the airbrush. I then picked out some details with Vallejo Grey Primer.
Step 4: On to the painting! To match the colours used for my Space Marine army, I used Mournfang Brown as the main colour. I then used various lighter/darker shades around the base.
Step 5: Painting the details. I airbrushed the rocks and rubble with Mechanicus Standard Grey and highlighted them with Dawstone and Administratum Grey. The skulls were painted Zandri Dust and highlighted with Ushabti Bone and Screaming Skull. The Rhino door and white details on the Storm Shield were painted Celestra Grey and highlighted Ulthuan Grey and White Scar. The various Space Marine details were painted to represent the colours of the Chaos army my friend uses - Khorne Red and then highlighted with Wazdakka Red and Squig Orange.
Finally, I airbrushed a very diluted mix of Steel Legion Drab and water to represent dried dust. This helped tie all the details together prior to shading and highlighting the base. To protect the base and prepare if for shading I applied airbrushed a couple of coats of Vallejo Gloss Varnish.
The following steps will involve using Brown and Black washes over the gloss varnish. Once those have dried, I will drybrush the various details to bring the colours back up and provide more contract. Further weathering will be applied before, finally, sealing the base with matte varnish.
Todays post covers a rebasing of my Contemptor Dreadnought. I haven't been happy with the original base for a while now, and this week I wanted a quick and easy hobby project so thought I'd spend some time giving this model a more detailed base. I've included a comparison image of the old base... I hope you agree that the new one looks much better!
After my experimenting with Blood Angels test model, this week I have mostly been experimenting with bases! The bases photo'd in this post all use GW texture/dry paint combinations and basing stones.
I haven't completely settled on which colour I will go with for my Blood Angels although I'm leaning towards the 'urban' Astrogranite/Longbeard Grey combination. I'm also not entirely certain whether I will use the texture paints as I found them quite hard to apply. no matter that decision, it has been very useful to built this suite of test bases. No matter which style I choose for the BAs, I will retain these testers for any future projects.
