Basing Somalis for Mogadishu
Here are the recently painted Britannia Somali figures. I have superglued them to 60mm round plywood bases from Litko Aerosystems.
Once they're securely fixed to their group bases it's time to start the messy stuff.
Here's what I use for the first stages of figure basing. The main ingredient is Basetex which is an acrylic basing medium made by Colour Party that combines paint, glue and texture into one easy-to-apply paste. I buy mine from Irregular Miniatures. Basetex comes in a variety of colours and sizes. I mainly use BT27 Dried Earth which is the one pictured above. BT19 Green Basetex is very useful as well. I buy my Basetex in 500ml tubs for £9.00 but if you want to experiment first it's available in 200ml pots for £2.00. I find the small pots dry out though so I avoid them these days. Basetex is very heavy so the postage is expensive at 50%. Try to get some at a show if you can.
I use a small palette knife to apply the Basetex and a piece of brass wire to push it into small spaces. The cocktail sticks are in case of very small spaces. It's a good idea to have some kitchen roll handy to wipe your tools clean and fix mistakes. Should you get some Basetex where you don't want it, a liberal application of clean water with an old paintbrush will flush it away.
The jar of grit is for later.
This batch of Basetex is very runny, usually it's thicker, but this doesn't affect the application process. I work from the centre out so that I can keep a good, firm hold of the base whilst poking the Basetex into the complicated areas between the figures and still keep my fingers clean. Once this difficult part is done I can hold the group by a figure and finish adding the Basetex to the outside.
Here's a completed base, now for the grit.
The grit is railway scatter from Woodland Scenics which is available from Model/hobby shops everywhere. I sprinkle a little on the base for added texture (Apply it in pinches like you would add salt to your cooking). I try to get a line crossing the base so that it adds to the illusion that the base is a segment of a larger area around it; I like having my basing materials extend to the edges, others don't, it's your choice. I'll do the occasional base with grit just on one half and a couple with just small patches to add variety and try to keep a 'natural' look.
The Basetex will hold the grit securely when it's dried, no glue required.
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Here's everyone with their grit in place. Now I need to wait for the Basetex to dry before continuing. This will take about 4-5 hours but I leave it overnight to be sure.
Once everything is dry I shake off the excess grit and it's time to paint. I use Foundry Base Sand 10A as my standard basing colour. Now, using the actual Foundry paint would prove very, very expensive so I took a sample to my local paint shop and they mixed a litre of household emulsion to match the colour for under £10.00. Every so often I decant some from the big pot into a small jar for ease of use.
I begin by painting the edges of the base as this needs a solid colour and usually takes two coats.
Once the edges are done I apply a heavy drybrush to the surface of the base.
Finally I add another heavy drybrush of Foundry Base Sand 10C to the gritted areas and a little way around them. This isn't actual Foundry Base Sand 10C, like the Foundry Base Sand 10A, it's from another colour matched pot of household paint.
The finished painting.
The last step is to add some static grass. I use whichever static grass I happen to find when I need to buy some, the new batch gets added to the old batch. This current lot is mainly Games Workshop grass.
I apply wood glue from a palette with a cocktail stick to the areas of the base that I want to put the grass on. I try to get in amongst the figures' feet and have a general 'line' of grass running across the base, the same as for the grit earlier.
I transfer the static grass from the pot to the base with some old tweezers. I pick up a sizable amount and dump it on the figure base. I repeat this until all the glue is covered. It's best to do this over a collecting receptacle of some kind to avoid mess and waste.
Once the glue is all thickly covered with static grass I tamp it down with the flat of the tweezers and then tip the excess grass off into my collection plate. The base is now finished.
Click on the photo for a larger version.
Here's everything completed. Once the glue has dried (tomorrow) these chaps will get their covering of Testors Dullcote to remove their shine and be ready for the table.
