Thursday, January 28, 2010

Evolution of Bases

From the earliest days of my hobby painting miniatures, I've stuck to an old standard--painting my bases goblin green. Actually, the first thing I did was paint the surface of the base goblin green, and left the rim black (I was following advice given in the 3rd edition of the Warhammer Fantasy Battle rulebook, even though most of the models in the pictures had goblin green rims as well).

After a while I decided to up the complexity and I glued modelling grass onto the base surface--of course, it was a brilliant green, and so looked rather bright. (in the picture it has faded over the years):

I experimented briefly with modelling flock. The result came out ok, but I wasn't entirely satisfied with it.

I then tried gluing sand (or even gravel) to my bases and painting it. It took some practice but I got better at it. Here's one of my earlier attempts:

Eventually I settled in with that, gluing sand on the base and painting it entirely in goblin green, then drybrushing the base with Bilious Green (they don't make it anymore, the closest analogue is Scorpion Green) and then a lighter drybrush of Golden Yellow:

After a long time of that being my standard, I decided that my bases were too bland, so I decided to liven them up a little. Rather than pure grass, I would make it patchy grass, with the occasional rock and some static grass to give it some extra texture:

Nowadays the goblin green rims are starting to wear on me, so I've decided to liven things up a little. For a long time GW's minis have been sporting a neutral brown rim, and while at first I didn't like them, they're starting to grow on me. So I decided to do an experiment and see what colors would look good.Left to right the rims are: Calthan Brown, Graveyard Earth, Khemri Brown, and the original Goblin Green. Opinions? This next picture shows they'll actually look like on the gaming table:

7 comments:

Rushputin said...

I've never really cared for the Goblin Green rims... I've used Graveyard Earth before, and liked it, but think the Calthan Brown rims look as good/better and are probably much easier to do (GE is kind of a thin paint, and Calthan Brown's a Foundation Paint).

That said, with the last two 40K armies, I've done, I've done the rims black.

Col. Corbane said...

Blast from the past or what!

I still have that first elf from when I first got into the hobby. Gone are the days where you'd get 60 models in a regiment for £10.

Thanks for the nostalgia trip.

On the bases, I've actually gone full circle on the rims, first they were black, then goblin green, then textured and drybrushed and now I'm back to black.

Andy - bG said...

WOW! green rimmed bases, hadn't seen one of those in so long. Those good old days of GW and some extremely "bright" painting.

As to a new colour, I've been using graveyard earth on the rims of my bases of late, but the khemri brown is also looking pretty nice. I'd suggest either of those two, but thats just my opinion.

Jack Badelaire said...

My non-green Orky bases are finally changing your goblin green ways...

I'd go with either Graveyard Earth or Khemri Brown. The Catachan seems to be a little dark for your table, but who knows, it might work. I agree though that changing it up is a good idea, especially with Orks - I couldn't bring myself to paint the bases with the same color I was using as the primary color on my boyz.

I still like the neutral (non-GW) grey I've painted my ork bases, but I know they need a touch-up. Some of them were painted when the paint was thinned a little and some have taken a bit of a beating.

For my upcoming Space Wolves force, I want to go with grey again, but this time either something much lighter or much darker than the neutral shade I've used for my Orks. I'll probably have to do up a couple of test models and see how they look.

Mordian7th said...

Nice - I pretty much went through the same stages on my bases, though I'm still experimenting in the "patchy grass" stage.

I rim all my bases in Dark Flesh these days, thought I'd throw that out as another option. Of the ones you have shown, I think the Graveyard Earth looks the best.

RAZ said...

I use a big bottle of cheap craft paint. The color is called Mississippi Mud or something similar, but it is similar in color to Graveyard Earth.

Admiral Drax said...

I agree wholeheartedly with Rushputin. Graveyard Earth's a great colour but way too much hassle to paint.

- D.