Hobby Basics: Spooky Fog Effect

Being some of the first “real” multibased units I hobbied on, the basing for my Undead for years has been passable, but just rocks and mud looked a bit sparse, and I could never quite figure out what to add to it to make the units look more complete. 

I talked a little bit about this at the time, but inspiration struck in late 2023 while watching some battle reports from Lazy Pirate Painting, where one of the regular armies used what looked like cotton balls to create a fog or mist for their Undead. I liked that general idea, and started working on my own version of the concept. While the bulk of this was published about a year ago, I wanted to expand a bit on it, and have a Hobby Basics post for it.

Don't try to color it.

The cotton balls were just a little too recognizable for me. They also seemed too fluffy and too bright and too white relative to the darker colors of my army. Instead I opted for Poly-Fil, a synthetic fiber fill for pillows and stuffed animals and and other stuffed stuff. Poly-Fil can come in different colors, but my bag is slightly darker white. For fun I tried getting more of a gradient going with some diluted paint, but just made a mess. The fil isn’t very absorbent! Don't do this! Fortunately, after doing up a test unit, my Fil color looks just fine on the table.

Poly-fil comes in a large bag. I picked one up years ago for a few dollars, intending to upcycle some old clothes into pillows. That never happened. I also didn’t really put a dent in my bag with this project either. Over the pandemic I picked up some 3d printed minis on etsy, and the seller used Poly-fil in a sandwich bag as padding for shipment. I’m not quite done with the army, but I didn’t even make a dent in the sandwich bag… since I am stretching it out for the visual effect instead of smushing it down for extra bounce and padding, a little goes a long way.

The Fog is the last step. To get going, you'll want your otherwise finished miniature or unit on hand, a clump of Poly-Fil to pull from, and an adhesive.

For my adhesive, I actually went with Winsor and Newton's Acrylic Glazing Medium, the same medium used to get the shiny effect on the mud for the Undead and the water/ice for the Herd. I knew the medium dried clear, and figured that could be a good way to hide things. Super glue works as well, though creates some stiffness around the join. PVA glue (white glue, Elmer's glue) did not work well as the dry time is long and the grip isn't strong. 

So, Step 1 is to do everything else you want to on your miniature or unit, including the rest of the basing.

Otherwise finished, so we're ready for the fog!

Step 2 is to apply small globs of your adhesive to the base. You can use a stir stick, nozzle if it's got one, or something like an old brush, if you aren't using super glue. 

Step 3 is to tease out bits of Poly Fil from your larger cloud, and then apply it to the base, placing it on top of your adhesive globs. Being fibrous, tearing the Fil off leads to a lot of wispy ends. This is solved by rolling the fil around in your hands and shaping it into a more uniform blob. 

A few globs of medium for the adhesive, and some tufts of Poly-Fil.

For individually-based miniatures, that was about a thumb-nail’s worth of fil. For multibased units, I tore off a few clumps and just played with it until I liked the look. You can then use your fingers or a tweezer or other tool to tease out the fill again into the general wispy shape you actually want. 

All done.

Putting down lots of smaller clumps of Fil is better, as it gives a more flowy look, and gives you more points of contact to tease the Fil around to get the shape you want, whether that's curling around a leg or expanding the clumps to decrease its density. Close-up, you'll see the fibers, but on the table, this looks wispy and more diffused. 

...and that's that. With the clumps secured, you can tease it and work with it until you are happy.

And that's the simple fog effect I stumbled upon, about 10 months late! It adds much more visual interest to my otherwise very bland basing, and while I am over-analyzing things, I think it also kinda sells the unexpected Shambling moves the Undead can pull off. The Undead have gotten a few games in since they got the basing upgrade, and are looking really nice on the table, if I do say so myself. 

We'll see them on the table again soon!

Hobby Basics: Tufts and Static Grass

Good basing elevates a paint job, and can be used to bring some context to your army. Are you playing with elves from a lush forest? Raiders from a wastland? A Champion fighting atop a pile of skulls? Thugs on cobblestone alleyways? Murderbots awakening on a factory floor? Whatever your mini is, you can use basing to help tell its story and integrate it into your setting and game. Many wargames take place outside, so adding some grass to you bases in common in many war games.

Grass Tufts

Tufts are small clumps of taller grass and can be used to emulate small bushes or other unkempt or wild foliage. They come pre-packaged by companies like Army Painter and Gamer Grass and are sold in a variety of colors to emulate the environment you want, from scorched grasses to verdant green foliage to alien vegetation. 

The rocks protect the grass tufts from the hooves of a devastating cavalry charge on the arid plains.

They are pretty easy to stick on a base, but it can be hard to pull off a natural look. Mel the Terrain Tutor has a lot to say on the matter, and I would suggest looking him up for more tips and details. But essentially you don't want to stick this just anywhere on the base. To get a natural look, think of weeds popping up around sidewalk or broken asphalt. The tufts should be stuck next to rocks and walls and such, as these other terrain pieces would typically protect the grass and allow it grow to tuft-size in your setting of choice.

Grass sprouting up near ruins, stones, or alongside buildings can look good on the tabletop!
Place it where it would be protected a bit.

Adding tufts is usually one of the last steps for me for a basing scheme. You don't want to get paint on them after all, so do everything else first for your mini and your basing, and add these on last. The tufts usually come with a tiny bit of adhesive themselves, but I usually use a tiny bit of glue anyways (superglue or PVA, whatever I happen to have next to me) to make sure that tuft sticks. And as a last tip, tweezers are a nice way to get these tufts right where you want them. 

To take tufts to the next level, use a variety of clump sizes and don't be afraid to trim the tufts into irregular shapes as nature is not uniform! 

Sorta Static Grass

Another kind of commonly used grass is static grass. Ideally, you use an applicator to get these on to your terrain. My understanding is that the applicator uses an electric current to get the grass landing upright (like static electricity would do your your hair), making this look awesome for dioramas and lush bases.

One pass with glue and grass for this terrain. Remember to seal it and you are done!

I am not that fancy! For me, this grass is likely either going on around miniatures, where I don't have the space to use an applicator well, or going on terrain that is going to see some wear and tear over time. For me, I add some white glue where I want the grass. I take a pinch of grass from the box, and then rub my fingers together to sprinkle it on. The grass should land at angles, and look a little beaten down, but not flat. 

I leave this to dry overnight, knocking the excess grass back into the little box the next morning. If I did not get the coverage I want, I repeat this process. When the coverage is how I want it, I use a spray sealer, like Aleene's Acrylic Spray Sealer to protect the grass, spraying down the piece of terrain or around the miniature's feet. Static grass confounded me for a long time until I learned to seal it. It "sheds" everywhere if you don't take that final step, so sealing is a must! 

And to take grass to the next level, don't be afraid to mix types as you go. If you go darker grass as a lower layer and brighter grass as a final, upper layer, you can add some nice depth and shadow to your hobby creation. Just remember to wait for the lower layers to dry, and above all, remember to seal it once you are done!

And that is basics of hobbying with tufts and grass!

Hobby Basics: Craggy Hills

This post has been a long time coming. I mean, what is a hobby blog without some foam hills? Yes, there are many ways to build up wargaming hills. Some methods are even more simple than this, but this is the method I have used for my table terrain. This has been a post idea for the blog since early 2019 apparently, so yeah, a very long time coming. I just haven't had the need to make hills since I got my first few done. Now however, I am trying to do up some more terrain for a "meet and greet" Kings of War day, and figured I'd document the creation of these new hills. So let's get to it! To make these hills you will need:

• Pink Insulation Foam Sheet
• Utility knife (longer is better)
• Optional: Hot wire foam cutter (handheld or table)
• Metal ruler
• PVA Glue
• Optional: Mod Podge
• Newspaper
• Disposable bowls
• Optional: dark primer with matte finish
• Sand and small pebbles 
• Cheap craft Paints and large cheap brushes
• Optional: flock and tufts
• Acrylic Sealer with matte finish

Like any recipe, I'd recommend reading through this before starting on the project yourself. And instead of a step-by-step approach, I'll try to break the process into larger chunks, so you can focus in on what you want to do, as this is not a be-all-end-all kind of guide.

For example, the tops here are purposely more flat as this "plateau" style works very well for Kings of War and the big, ranked units that game uses. If this is for 40k or a skirmish game, or something that doesn't need or want a lot of flat spaces, break up this flat space when you get to these steps. Add some fun bits, or more layers of foam to bulk things up and make the piece more interesting and interactive. These plateau-style hills do make for a great building blocks for any hilly/rocky terrain you may want to make, which I why I wanted to showcase them. Onward, to the tutorial!

Making and Shaping the Hills

Like many wargaming hills, mine start out as pink insulation foam, which you can find at most hardware stores. One sheet goes a long way, so do not buy these in bulk! Once acquired, you will need to break down your large foam piece into your the basic shapes you want. You can sharpie on the rough shapes if that helps conceptualize and plan things out, and I'd suggest going slightly larger when in doubt. You can always cut it down to a smaller size later.

What will be 6 hills, roughly drawn in with a sharpie prior to cutting.

To get it into the desired smaller pieces, you can karate chop it, or otherwise brute force it, but I'd recommend a knife of some sort. A small x-acto knife can work, but it won't likely be long enough to be really useful. You want the blade to be able to go through most of, if not all the way through the foam, so it should be something more like this sturdy snap-blade retractable knife, or I've even used something smaller, like this smaller retractable knife. Heck, some crafters even use chef knives!  So use whatever you like, but the longer the blade the better. Also, be mindful of the sharpness of the blade, and where it is going, so you do not hurt yourself. If you are using a thin blade, be very careful of bending / breaking it as well as you work.

Optional alternative: if you have a hot wire foam cutter, either something simple and handheld, or something fancier like a Proxxon table, you can use that to break down your foam sheet into your basic hills sections. Your cuts will be very clean. I would highly recommend some tapered cuts near the top to give the hill a little more slope, and some more angles to work with when you get to painting. 

The cut hill. Here, I used a very shallow knife cut, and then broke the rest off. With a long knife or a wire cutter, you can have a nice uniform face, and could even call it good here.

With your hills roughly shaped out, you can continue some shallow cuts near to what you want to be the top, to give a more tapered look, or just proceed to using your all metal ruler. The ruler will be used to abrasively tear away at the foam, so you could just create the tapered edge with it and some brute force if you want. I still like to make the additional cuts to give some irregularities and additional facets to the cliffsides though. When working with the ruler, find a nice spot that is easy to sweep up, like a garage or tiled floor. A large trash bin should be used to ease the clean-up too. And I'd recommend one of the covid-era masks you likely have around still. This steps makes a lot of debris and fine particles, and you probably don't want to be breathing these in.

The final pro tip here is to use a new trash bag before you start this step. It makes this step more pleasant. But, as you can see from above, there is a lot of fine particles kicked up during this step.

Kind of like peeling carrots, or more like scaling a fish I suppose, take your ruler and scrape it along the sides of your hills. You want a jumpy, irregular effect here. You want the ruler to drag and catch on things, snag, and break pieces off. The metal ruler is nice as it should be sturdy enough to not bend, and you can go pretty vigorously with it. As said before, these flakes will go everywhere unless you are pushing the ruler towards the bin, and there is a fine "dust" that gets kicked up, so again wear a little mask and eye protection if you wish. Safety first and all that.

The top one here has had the tapering cuts and is ready to be roughed up with the ruler. The bottom hills are all done already.

Once "roughed up" use your fingers to brush away any weak flakes. You want to get all the tenuous and flimsy bits off, leaving just the rough but firm wall texture. If you do not do this part, the flimsy bits are likely to break off in future steps or in games, and you'll need to do a lot of touch-up work to fix and re-seal the piece. So, gently brush away those flimsy bits now to save yourself a lot of future hassle.

Protecting the Hills

Foam does not play well with a lot of things, and wargaming terrain also tends to take a bit of a beating, so next we need to protect what we've got done so far. There are a few ways to go about this, but the youtube channel Black Magic Craft has a great video covering the basics. Essentially we want to get a protective layer onto the foam, so it is protected and the paint will stick better to it. Find a working area that won't be disturbed for a day or so and put down some newspaper to protect that working surface. 

Get some PVA glue, like Elmer's, or alternatively get some Mod Podge, and add just a splash of water to make it slightly more runny in consistency. Thick, gluey gooey blobs are bad, you want this to apply more like a very thick paint. You could add some squirts of cheap craft paint too here, if you want. Doing so, particularly with a dark color like a black or a grey or a brown, will help cover up the pink foam and protect it in one step, and adding a color here also helps you more easily figure out what areas you have covered already!

Once your gluey substance of choice is mixed up, then use a cheap large brush, like a simple foam brush, to apply it to the foam. Just slap it down everywhere on the edges and then either on the bottom or the top side. Place the uncovered side atop the disposable bowl, so any excess will drip off (ideally onto the newspaper). Give it a few hours to dry. During this waiting period, you can either toss your glue away, or preserve it with some plastic wrap over your reservoir. Then repeat the process, covering up the other side with the glue now, and touching up any spots you might have missed. Again, adding a color lets you more easily identify missed spots.

It is important to wait and do just the top or just the bottom each time. Otherwise, the gluey hill will stick to the disposable bowl, and peel away much of your progress, as shown above.

With your gluey substance of choice dried, your hills should be well-protected for hobbying, and be a good starting point for just about any table style.

Hobbying on and Finishing up the Hills

I was trying to get these new hills to match up with some of my spooky terrain, which uses a lot of brown tones and greyish rocks, but these hills can be a good basis for any table style. I won't document this part too much, as there is too much variation to cover.

In my case, I used slightly diluted PVA/Elmer's glue to cover a section, and sprinkle sand and tiny rocks around. I'd wait a few hours for it to get completely dry, and then repeat the process in another section, usually with a different sized rock, as variation helps the piece look better. Nature is not uniform, after all. After the top was covered with "stuff" and fully dry, I then went on to prime the piece haphazardly with both a brown and a black primer, to get some color variation going as well. Then I used cheap craft paints to paint it mostly brown, overbrushed the edges with a dark gray, and then gave the entire piece a drybrush in dark gray and then light gray.

Brown hills for a brown, earthy table. 

I have also done this style of hill for a desert table, using super glue to affix some larger pebbles (the PVA or Mod Podge shell will protect the foam), and then spread PVA glue all around the top, sprinkling small small rocks and sand onto it, painting it up in more tan and sandy colors. 

Tan hills for a tan, sandy table. 

What you eventually do for this section depends on your table. You might go for something I did above, or opt for some static grass and flock, or even choose a thick, snowy plateau to hobby up. Take inspiration from your table and your miniatures and your play mat, as having a matching table for your army is a pretty nice nerdy flex.

Once done hobbying on and painting up your hills, the final step is to take an acrylic spray sealer with a matte finish (like Aleene's) to the piece. Go outside and spray liberally along the the edges and top, and give a few minutes for it to dry. Once dried, there should be a nice "clack" sound when you tap it. This last step add another layer that should protect your painting and such from the wear and tear of normal gaming. 

And that's it! A hopefully easy-to-replicate way to make yourself some interesting hills for your wargaming endeavors. Thanks for reading!

Hobby Basics: Light Box

One of my purchases in 2021 so far is a small, foldable "light box." After my struggles photographing the Goreblights, I ordered this, figured this would help my photography for the blog. You can DIY one for cheap, but having virtually none of the materials on hand (no extra lights or lamps, no neat paper..), and no great space to setup/store a large light box permanently I opted for the easy way out and just bought one ready-made. 

For those that don't know... the light box can be a great photography tool, emulating the effects of a large set or photo shoot on a small scale. The box has a smooth backdrop for simple backgrounds, and enough lights to both illuminate the object and mitigate shadows from the shot. My photos for the blog here have been less than professional, and have been atop bookcases and countertops and illuminated by lamps. Generally, you'd get what I was going for, but they don't look all that impressive.

With no real hope of any in-person stuff the last year-plus, it's been hard to find any motivation to hobby, and the content here has stalled out, as you will have noticed. But I'm now on the list for a vaccine shot in the coming weeks, and friends are starting to look to the summer for games and potential get-togethers. That generally positive mental shift, plus some recent good weather got me to dig this light box out and do some hobbying for the first time in a loooong time in an attempt to try it out properly. Cuz retaking a picture of already completed hobby items is for chumps I guess.

Not what you were expecting, eh?

Over the pandemic, I got reacquainted with Ebay. I had used it as a kid to get some sweet sweet Magic The Gathering cards (ooo, Urza's Saga, how broken you were...), but I think that was the last I used the platform, prior to the pandemic. I mean, I browsed back in my WHFB days, knowing that "ebay armies" was a thing, but never found anything worth pouncing on. Anywho, I took to Ebay, and found some new Necrons. 

I used Necron conversions as Warforged for a lengthy D&D campaign set in Eberron. They were going to be the big bads of the overall campaign, and after setting the hooks literally years prior, the party had just started to uncover the sinister plans of the Perpetual Legion, and their insidious ties to many of the previous adventures. Flying in their battered airship over an inhospitable wasteland, the last session we ran saw the party discover a hidden city for the Legion, which stood up on the legs of hundreds of industrial automaton platforms as the party's airship approached... aaand then the campaign then ran into irreconcilable scheduling differences. 

Scheduling likely won't be any better for that campaign yet (pesky children), but the talk of potential post-lockdown fun got me wondering what kit-bashes I might be able to throw at these players in due time, and wondering what the Necron range might have added since circa 2015-2018.

They are really making you work for an kind of unique looking army... the head pieces in particular are insane to me... so much over-engineering at work here. All the bits had odd-shaped nubs too, making it very hard to mix-and-match. Great for mono-pose (no mistakes), bad for unique hobbying. 

Unfortunately, the kit-bashing was not meant to be! The Destroyers are designed as mono-pose, and ridiculously so! Heads connected to collarbones connected to arms. And the torsos had a nub sliding through everything in order to connect it to/through the leg/spine bits... I'm not even sure if you could even swap the legs between models (that is, assembled trio with a different assembled trio; individual leg swaps should be out since the mini utilizes the hex nubs to get into the base). Basically a year away from any serious hobbying... conversions on this scale was more work than I wanted to engage in. The models are impressive, but are kinda too cute by half? The same poses could have easily been achieved with more of a "classic" design (eg here are the arms, separate from the heads, and torsos, also by themselves). The pelvis had pistons with nubs supposed to fit into the other leg part... but the piston made it hard to push-fit the legs together without busting the piston. Neat poses, but over-complicated design than I am not a fan of.

In the end though, I decided to double down, buying up some kind of Lord model and another trio of slashy Destroyers. I needed a limited project, and despite the flaws, these had caught my attention. 

So, I took a day, and set about hobbying, with the intent to start slow and reinforce some good layering and thinning habits (multiple layers for the metal to get good coverage; sliding scale to white for the face plates; just ... playing around with the blades)... The minis were a nice way to spend a day. They could still use some work (highlights to the metal, washes in spots, that kind of thing), but I'll wrap those details up in the coming days. 

I don't know when they will ever see a gaming table. Perhaps one or two may indeed threaten an adventuring party at some point (hmm... mental note to work up stats for some warforged driders), but the whole crew is likely overkill. I am entirely uninterested in playing 40k, though Grimdark Future from OnePageRules is still something I would be keen on trying out at some point, and these guys could be a heckuva cool unit to field.. We'll see. Even if they are not used for gaming, they did exactly what I needed them to, and were a nice, limited unit to hobby up.

...And because I am a bit of a chump, I decided to dig out my Goreblights from storage for a quick photoshoot do-over. Can't have a post with just weird-lookin robots, right?

Ta-da! First try. No longer blurry.

Will need to play around more with positioning of the minis relative to the light, but yeah, pretty good! You even get to see some of the nice glisten effect going on. Wet undead are gross!

Overall, the light box is neat! It folds up for easier storage, and is secured by buttons when assembled. It comes with a few different fabric colors for the curved backdrop. My only concern real concern is the light apparatus... which is a naked strip with a usb port to power it. I envision that getting dusty or something eventually, but we'll see how I do there! The other concern may be the size of the box... fitting in hordes may be difficult. They'll definitely fit, but it might not be the best shots. Ideally, you would not see the sides of the box, like you do in all these pictures!

Also at play is a new phone camera! My previous phone belly-flopped onto the hard kitchen floor, over the winter, obliterating the screen. The new-to-me phone is still a few iterations behind the times, but should be a step up or two in camera quality. I'll need to play around more for sure with the new phone and light box, but the first shots here seem like improvements to me!

Hobby Basics: Rivers

Many a historical battle has been influenced by rivers, whether securing a flank, circumscribing movement, or hindering the chance of safe retreat. They definitely have a place on a gaming battlefield, and back around April 2020, I set out to see what I could manage! 

You can of course just buy terrain if you want (the various Flames of War boxes do look pretty good, and reasonably priced), or maybe 3D print some, but if you're cheap, feeling creative, or a combination of the two, wargaming rivers are easy enough to do up on your own.

The pikemen attempt a crossing in the worst possible way.... maybe someone dropped something upstream?

Good terrain should be durable. While I think cardstock or thin cardboard could potentially work as a base, I've picked up a pair of PVC squares last summer, and have been using it for bases for my recent terrain bases. I've just been using a hobby knife and occasional saw to hack it into the shapes I needed. The PVC may be a bit overkill, but it's sturdy and working well.

For the river, I used a full 12" by 12" sheet, plus some 3" square scraps from the other sheet for the corners. I am least happy with the corners, but more on that at the end. While narrow rivers aren't necessarily safe, eyeballing it, approximately 3" wide terrain pieces and 2" wide rivers looked like reasonable but surmountable obstacles for Kings of War units.

Sketching helps plan stuff out, and line things up. 

I wanted the joining edges as flush as possible, so I used careful knife work to start, and a longer hobby saw for a more uniform cut. The edges on the banks I wasn't concerned with, so I roughly cut them with a hobby knife, and then carved out more interesting edges. Rivers don't flow in a straight line after all!

WIP with paste. In the top right, I added some pink insulation rocks, to create a section that would be impassable. I liked that 

Speaking of.... rivers DO flow, which creates a bit of a dilemma for this terrain. I didn't want to have easily identifiable directional flow like v's or eddies (if you do want that, check out this site here for some visuals). So I opted not to include rocks in the middle, for example, and paint up everything lazily, with cartoony current lines, so that I could orient the pieces in either direction.

The banks are Vallejo Rough Grey Pumice, painted gray as I wanted a kind of mountainous river look. I don't know why, I don't really have any mountainous basing or rugged 

The river's paint job is nothing too special. I did a base coat of GW's Temple Guard Blue, then a metallic teal from Deco Art to give it a glisten, and then current lines with some random blue paints. The intent was to try and show the speed without bringing eddies into the mix.

The finished result.

So, did it work?  Well, it's on the table, so yes, it counts! Are their ways to improve? Oh, for sure! Were I to do this again, the following things would be on my mind:

• The PVC squares/sheets worked well as a base. It took a little extra work to get the straight cuts (when not on the edge of the sheet, har har), but the effort seems worth it. They seem pretty durable, and should last a while.
• The basing paste worked too. Those various pastes have continually been pretty slick. 
• Cutting the bends from one piece helps get everything lined up too. This allows the river to line up with a table edge. This is not of paramount importance, but you don't want things hanging off table edges if you can help it.
• BIGGER IS BETTER. I think the pieces would look better a little wider, and would want to play around with some wider sections. I think slightly wider banks would also look good, and maybe going muddier rather than rockier would look good too.
• MORE IS BETTER. You want more pieces than you'd think. This amount can bisect a standard KoW table, but barely, and only on the short end. With a good bend, I can carve out one corner of the table... which isn't really fair. I'd probably want at least 50% more pieces than I have currently, to give more terrain options in a game.
• LONGER IS BETTER, at least for the bends. The tiny corners do not look great, to put it mildly. I think they have a place, but overall, longer and more curvy river sections should look better on the table, and I will not be making any more tiny bends.

Overall, this worked well though, and I learned a lot. Another sheet's worth of work and I should have a very passable, lengthy, and most importantly bendy river for the table!

Hobby Basics: Army Painter Basing

Mid May I decided to try my hand at a more traditional basing scheme with hobby ballast and static grass and such. I picked up some stuff from Army Painter (Brown Battleground, Static Grass, and more tufts), and set to work. After a week or so of fuddling around, I felt I largely the hang of it.

In no particular order, I'd recommend using:

• Hobby Ballast (little rocks, etc)
• PVA Glue
• Static Grass (Army Painter)
• Tuft Grass (Army Painter)
• Bases of your choice
• Gel Super Glue
• Hobby knife
• Old Brush
• Spoon
• Popsicle stick
• Tweezers (for applying tufts)
• Paper Plate

With the above in-hand, here is a step-by-step method of application.

Step 1: Prepare the base

I really like cork board rocks, and always prime them, so adding those elements is my step 1. If you don’t like the look, ignore the rocks simply score your base a little with a hobby knife to get things started. The scoring is optional, but it did seem to help me a lot in my trials (if you don't score, you risk giving the glue not enough to grab onto with the base, and peeling all your basing materials right off of the base).

Bases, ready to go!

Step 2: Add Glue***

I experimented with different levels of diluted glue, and nothing worked well for me. I eventually squirted full strength PVA glue onto the base, and then smoothed it out with a tongue depressor, toothpick, or popsicle stick. That worked for me, so it's the level of glue dilution I'd recommend.

Step 3: Add the Ballast

Over a paper plate, spoon out the ballast, and dump it over the base. Be generous, as you don’t want bald patches on your base! Once covered, let your glue harden for a few hours, and use the paper plate to funnel any excess ballast back into its container.

On the right, the glue has been spread around, and the ballast applied on a few bases. Note the paper plate, used to catch a lot of the extra ballast!

Step 4: Add the Static Grass

Grab some more glue. You can either squirt it full strength onto the dried base, or dilute it a bit with water. Take an old brush, wet it, and spread the glue around a bit on the base. If you do have bald spots from Step 3, they are a great place for grass! Then, over a paper plate, take pinches of the static grass and sprinkle it onto the base.

Adding static grass!

Step 5: Add tufts

These tufts are great! They have a bit of adhesive on the bottom, but extra glue helps them stick and last. Simply put a dot of PVA glue or super glue on the bottom, and then place. You can use fingers to apply, or tweezers, if you’d rather.

Step 6: Add minis

I’m working with old GW Empire minis, which don’t have any stands or extra bits around their feet. So, with the base done, a dot of gel super glue on each foot is all you need. Hold in place for a few seconds, and then move onto the next one.

I would avoid PVA glue for this step, as it doesn’t set fast enough. I’d also avoid liquid super glue, as being more liquid, will likely get places you don’t want it to go during this step. The gel style super glue is designed to stay where you put it, and that can be very helpful when trying to orient minis.

Ta-da! Static grass and tufts and everything!

Step 7: Touchups!

Grass and tufts can help hide mistakes. If you used a little too much glue to base the minis, sprinkle a little more static grass!

*** If your minis come with stands, and you’re attempting this basing approach, I’d suggest painting them first, and then gluing them to the base as part of Step 1. When applying the PVA glue in Step 2, I’d recommend using a brush to apply the glue, as it is far more dexterous than a popsicle stick, and you don’t want to get glue on the model’s feet.

If the model is tricky, do the above in stages. Add a rank of minis, add the glue and ballast around their feet, and wait for it to set. Then move on to the next rank. It’s more time consuming, but it could be far less frustrating!

Hobby Basics: Water/Mud Effect

There are more advanced tutorials out there to get you some splash effects or ripples or sea foam or wading pools and such, but this method embraces my simple approach to hobbying; providing me with a neat little effect for very little time, money or effort.

My hobbying experience is largely limited to wargames, so I am not familiar with a lot of things at your typical craft shop. After trying a few different clear nail polishes trying to get this effect, I ended up buying a bottle of what I suppose can be termed a "glaze" product. I ended up with Winsor & Newton's Artists' Acrylic Glazing Medium, which promised a transparent, glossy finish. And it worked well to create the muddy effect, so I'm sharing it with you.

You will need:
-A painted, finished base, with flat spots (presumably the water or mud).
-An older, flatter brush
-The glaze
-A small test base, to see how thick you need to apply the glaze

The process here aims to do one thing: make things glossy. I assume your muddy or watery spots are painted the way you want (and dry). I recommend these areas also be flat, because of gravity and realism.

Some spooky Soul Reavers traipsing through rocks and mud and blood... it helped to use a few different colors for the mud, to give it a more deeper, layered look prior to glazing.

Apply some of the glaze in varying amounts to the spare base in a few spots. Let it dry overnight. This should clue you into how thickly you need to apply it to your bases, and approximately how long it takes to dry without wasting a ton of your time. 

Out of the bottle, the glaze is a milky-white fluid. I you apply it to thin, it looks transparent from the start, and doesn't dry well. I applied it until every area I wanted glazed had a kind of milky-white look to it, and let it dry overnight. It was fine by morning.

When you are ready to work on your bases, simply apply it to the parts you want glossy, in the amounts your test determined, and let it dry When everything is done and dry, you should have a nice shiny effect without obscuring the paint job below.

You can almost hear the squelches...

In terms of "technique" this is pretty easy: just apply it. Good job. The  difficult parts are all the prep and planning stages: making sure your have enough smooth or flat terrain on your base to use this effect, and then painting the effect (along with a few brush strokes against the feet of the models to "sell" it). 

All in all though, this is still a pretty simple effect to replicate, and one that I am happy to both have in my repertoire and to share with you.

Hobby Basics: Basing with Stands

A lot of the models I have been working with lately (Mantic Undead, Warlord Romans, Halflings, etc) have a stand as part of the model. While this small disc helps with painting, as you have a spot to hold while you paint the model, it can be a pain when it comes to basing the model, particularly with regards to multi-basing.

One could do all the basing first, blending little hills or rocks among the stands, and then paint everything. However, that seems crazy to me. Depending on the models, or size of the unit involved, it could easily be a nightmare to get the paint brush between legs or around weapon tips and into those middle models to paint. And that’s even ignoring the frustration of trying to paint any details (belts, gems, etc).

So, we'll have to paint and then base. Still, we'll need to deal with these stands. How? 

There are three basic approaches I have been using recently, regarding basing models with stands, which I figured I'd share here. Nothing below is particularly revolutionary, but a new hobbiest may find something helpful.

Basing with Paste

I still really like Vallejo paste, and am still using it frequently.  If you want to use the paste with your stands, it’s actually pretty easy, and I've been doing this currently, with a lot of my halfling units. I start with painted models.

-Base the stands of the models with the paste, and wait for it to dry.
-Paint the now-based stands
-Glue a rank of the models to the base.
-Add paste around the stands of that rank. Stopping short of where you want the next rank to be. I use a toothpick to move the paste around narrow areas, like in between feet. (It’s a cheap tool.) 
-Repeat. And repeat. And repeat… Keep adding a model or whole ranks, and pasting around it until you are done. Wait for it all to dry.
-Paint the newly pasted areas from above.

Add a rank... add the paste.

Above is a WIP pic with some halfling ponies I was testing out the process on. These models had been pasted and then primed and painted. This eventually led to a mismatch in color, with the parts under the ponies being darker than the surrounding areas due to the black primer on the stands. While painting can overcome this, it may be easier to paint first, and then add the paste, so all the paste starts out as that uniform color. 

Finished! Using a few shades of paint helped to blend the disparate paste color.

Using paste is relatively simple, though depending on the stand size and height, you may need to add another layer of paste to certain areas to better camoflage the stand, or you could be lazy and use grass tufts to obscure the bumps.

Basing with Milliput or Sculpting Putty

Greenstuff is usually the putty of choice for hobbiests, as it holds detail well, however, for basing, I prefer Milliput as it is cheaper and easier to smooth out. Whichever two-part putty you use, the general process should be the same: combining a bit of each part and kneading it together. For basing, we are looking to gently grade an area around the stand of the model, and have a "rolling hill" kind of result.

-Knead the putty, and just add little bits around the model. Use a wet tool or wet fingers to press it around the stand and smooth it all out. Wait for it to dry.
-Paint it up.

Milliput won't do much to make your base interesting on its own.

On the left, you can see the combined efforts of putty and paste. On the right, you can see an earlier stage. Some models have been puttied; the rest of the models have pasted, and are waited to be glued to the base and pasted around.

The putty doesn’t add a whole lot of interesting things on its own, so you should add flock or static grass or pebbles or something to get it to look interesting at the end. I

Remove the Stand

Depending on your dexterity and/or tools, you may be able to deftly slice the stand from the feet of the model. A sharp hobby knife or small hobby saw should be enough to deftly cut it, but ankles are generally weak points on models, so you have to be very careful. Additionally, it can be hard to get the cut flush with the stand, so you might clip a few toes accidentally… Depending on the model involved, this can be a difficult approach. However, you can prime/paint whenever you want with this approach. Priming/painting prior to cutting helps, as the stand does give you something to hold on to while you paint. Basically, the final steps are:

-Cut off the stand
-Finish all your basing, whatever it may be.
-Glue model to the finished base.

This technique can help you group your models closer together for a visual effect (like a swarm of tightly packed zombies), or if you only cut off a few models, it could allow for easier painting of the base itself, as you could glue these models on after everything else is painted.

To make a more interesting base, I’d recommend you combine some of the techniques above. Below is the start of a third Soul Reaver regiment. The models have been pasted, and glued down. I'm just about ready to add paste around the stands. Off to the side, you can see a model who has had their stand cut off, so I can still them close to the horse.



The last pic, below, is all three regiments of Soul Reavers, still works in progress. The back two had a combination of milliput and paste to create some rocky ground and flatter, muddy-looking areas, while the front unit had that, plus a few stands clipped to get the vampires closer to the slain horse. The work was spread over a few evenings to allow things to dry: the first the putty; the second to paste; the third to paint. Even combining all three approaches, this was a pretty painless way to work. It just took a little time to get it all squared away.

Not quite finished, but close. The bases aren't fancy, but they work.

So there you have it. Some basic tips for working with models with stands. Thanks for reading!

Hobby Basics: Snow Effect

I've been meaning to write this up for a while. Previously I did snow bases with just Elmer’s Glue (basically PVA glue) and lots of baking soda dustings. However, the process was terrible. It took a lot of time; was messy; and arguably most importantly, after a year the glue starts to turn yellow as the glue got older. All in all it was a bad system.

That approach was pioneered a few years ago. In the interim, I’ve grown a little as a hobbiest.. so here is my new method for snowy bases. Admittedly it is probably similar, if not identical to anything you will find on the internet regarding snowy bases. You will need the following:

-Painted, Finished bases
-Elmer's Glue (PVA Glue)
-Baking Soda
-White Paint (Don’t use paints for your miniatures; buy a tube from an art store, it's cheaper)
-Something to mix everything up (toothpick, or a plastic utensil, or something else)
-An old brush to apply it to the base.
-A disposable picnic plate. Mixing everything together there and throwing it all out when you are done is nice and easy.

Behold! Supplies!

The itself process isn’t difficult, and you can experiment a bit with the proportions to see what you like. I start with roughly equal portions of paint and glue, and start mixing it together. Then I stir in baking soda... adding more and continuing to stir until the mixture starts to look grainy. If it is too thick for your liking at any stage, a few drops of water can dilute it.

A pile of stuff to mix.

Once the mixture is all ready, take an old, broader brush, swipe it through the mixture, and start applying to your bases. The mixture basically destroys brushes, so use an old brush, and rinse it out frequently (I usually rinse after each base) to prolong the life of the brush.

Some bases drying, along with my current snow brush. The bristles have flayed out due to the mixture...

If you want a “wind swept snow” feel, brush only in one direction, similar to dry brushing. The mixture will cling to the basing. You can also just slop it on thickly, more akin to deeper snow drifts. The mixture takes some time to set, but should be ready to go after an hour or two, depending on how thickly you applied your mixture.


This approach works easiest with stand-less models (where you can do up the base, and then just glue down the painted models at the end). If you models have stands, get your basing and models painted and finished, and then use a smaller brush to apply the snow mixture as a finishing touch.

Some finished, snowy units.

This is producing far superior results to my earlier approach. The process is quick and the materials are cheap... all contributing to a nice, simple basing effect.