Making Crackle Texture Bases

Just a quick how-to for making crackle texture bases that can be painted to represent dried earth, shale, ice, or other surfaces. I'll be using Instant Mold, check out my earlier blog on the stuff here, as well as green epoxy putty , and egg shells. Using egg shells gives these bases an organic and random texture that is hard to replicate otherwise. 

First attain the shells. I usually steam mine for twelve minutes in a steamer. This makes them delicious. Then as I'm peeling the egg I try to keep the shell in one big, flat piece as this makes the crackle texture more believable.

Trust me, this is green stuff and not Pure Evil.

I really need some new Instant Mold. This batch is starting to look like novelty dog vomit.

Flatten a thin layer of green stuff onto a paper plate or the like. This will hold the shell flat so that you can then use the Instant Mold to make a texture mold. Use fresh green stuff to cover the top of the base you'd like to use and then press the texture mold over it. Wait until the putty is cured and then trim the edge to clean up the base.

Extra effects like static grass or snow can really add realism to a base.

Easy! The two examples here are a snow and ice motif and a cracked mud texture. I used static grass and a small bit of jute twine to make dried plants. If you decide to try this technique for yourself please share your results via the comments.

Thanks!

 

Here's what it looks like when you use toast:

snow base

Snow base in 10 simple steps – Tutorial

Written by Rentall

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Snow on bases! Yes, it’s great idea… but wait, I don’t have any “modeling snow” or anything like that. It’s not a problem for us. We can make a simple snow base in only 10 steps. Let’s go!

What do we need?

• cork
• base
• static grass
• baking soda
• vicol glue (PVA glue)
• super glue
• water
• paints: Black (VGC), Wolf Grey (VGC), Skull White (GW)
• old brush

Step 1

Glue a piece of cork to your base using super glue.

Step 2

Paint the whole cork Black. I used a brush for painting this one, but if you want to make more bases you can use an airbrush.

Step 3

Use the old brush.

Drybrush your base with Wolf Grey.

Step 4

Drybrush your base with Skull White.

Step 5

Use static grass and glue it with super glue.

Step 6

Now we have to make the snow. Put some vicol (PVA) glue on the plastic pad.

Step 7

Add a few drops of water and mix it. You should have something with consistency of sour cream.

Step 8

Add some baking soda and mix it. If you are not satisfied, you can add more baking soda. Now you should have consistency of porridge for children. Add some skull white to gain brighter snow.

Step 9

Put your snow on the base.

Step 10

Wait until the snow is dry. You can put the base under a source of light, for example a lamp on the desk. After a few minutes the snow is dry and you can put a mini on your snow base.

Finished snow base

Autumn-themes bases

set of Autumn-themes bases for his miniatures, and (what’s even better) described the whole process. So here goes his description:
Hello!
I have made some bases in Autum style. I used the following materials:

I created some stones from FIMO and used 3 different kinds of sand:

Then I painted the whole thing in black first.

Then I drybrushed the sand with various browns and painted the stones with various red-browns, and finished with Bleached Bone and some metallic medium to get the effect of quartz crystals.

The next step was the static grass…

… which was later varnished and painted after drying and drybrushed with a mixture of different greens and Bleached Bone and yellow

The next step was to add some leaves – painted with different brown, red and yellow colors

The last step was to put on some wood, because if there are leaves – there must also be wood.
the finished base looks like this:

And here are some pics of six such bases:

I hope it’s helpful

display base

Who needs a display base?

Anyway – even though there's much less time for painting I just couldn't refuse myself playing a skirmish game once per a week or two and recently we've been working hard converting old Necromunda rules to make the game more exciting.

That leads to the definitely biggest hobby of achievement of last months which was finishing whole gang of Goliaths – based on EM4 minis. I like these bastardos so much I decided to give them display base so they look nice standing in my display case, waiting for next battle. It takes less than a day to finish base like I made and that's what the article is about.
Please note – Chest of Colors is very friendly community so the original text had to be slightly adjusted to be nice as well but if you want to read FUUK- friendly version – just visit my blog at Plinth Country.

What will you need?

Apart from ordinary hobby supplies try to get some plaster (or any other filler: the cheaper – the better), photo frame or display plinth of some sort and if you plan to take some wip-photos – wife, girlfriend or brother will be useful as well.
So I started by choosing photoframe – it's pretty cheap, you can buy it in store like IKEA and it's perfect for the job. First or all I removed glass – you can throw it away. I was also trying to mark spots for base sockets which turned out totally useless bit later.


First of all I broke wooden frame support off the frame back.

Another step was cutting the styrofoam sheet to fit the frame – wallpaper knife used. To get more precise cut I used hot wire thingy. I inserted the sheet into photoframe – as you can see it fits pretty well so we can proceed.

The bottom was glued to the frame. I used solid amount of polymer glue to be sure it won't fall off or whatever. If you don't trust the glue only - hit the base with some paperclip pins.

Creating the terrain

For better minis presentation I decided to add small elevation in the back of the display area. I plan to place 5 gangers on it and rest of the gang – on lower level.


Time to mark final destination of the miniatures on the display base. To do it I simple pressed bases onto the styro – it will be helpful while cutting holes for the sockets.


Cutting is easy – hot wire deals with styro with ease. All you have to remember about at this stage is cutting holes slightly bigger than bases. Also don't throw away cylinders left after cutting the thing – these will be useful a bit later.

It's time to prepare styro-plugs for the work ahead. I simply cut them in 2 slim parts – don't have to be very precise at this step, these parts will be just a filler.

Making sockets for miniatures

The plan is to fill holes in the base with sockets and prepared styrofoam for better bond.

The socket was made of citadel paint pot lid: if you use these paints it's good idea to collect the lids – inner part is just PERFECT for 25mm round bases*. I still have some pots from Citadel range but because I mostly use Vallejo brand I made a single socket and recasted it for the whole Necromunda gang.

The procedure is simple:
Put the styrofoam on the back and place sockes in the holes (I told ya to make the holes slightly bigger, didn't I? ).

Hit the sockets with some glue – once again polymer (it's really fine but it requires some time to try) and then cover it with slim styro plugs.

Texturing the surface

Now we'll fill the gaps and give the base better surface to glue the sand bit later. I took some plaster and mixed it with water until if got consistency of yoghurt (more less)

At first I was trying to apply it on the base with knife or some spatula but after 5 seconds I realised fingers are much better for this job.
Remember I wrote there will be wife / gf / bro required? That's it!!! That's the stage!!!! I couldn't play with plaster and take pictures without making the camera really dirty (and probably – ruined if the wet plaster hit the lens)

The dirty job is dome – give it some time to dry. I applied pretty thin layer so after having a coffee (right side of the pic) and taking dog for a walk (~30 mins alltogether) I could continue the work.

Bases of all Agent Orange members are really simple: small gravel + sand painted with washes and then drybrushed. I think simplicity is ALWAYS the key especially in case of gaming models. Therefore making group base was no problem at all. I prepared some fine sand and some gravel.

Repeat the procedure on whole base just remember – work on small area at once because diluted glue can sink into plaster if you give it some time. When you got it done – leave the base to dry completely. And I mean it – be sure it's totally dry before the next step which is removing excess of sand with large, soft brush.

Now we have to make sure sand and gravel won't fall off during painting
Great way to ensure that is painting whole base with heavily diluted pva glue – some gravel will fall off now but not when you will be drybrushing the base. After pva dried I painted base once again – you can never be sure enough…

Once again it's time for waiting game before some paint can be slapped. Of course thank to the modern cosmic technology we can shorten waiting.

Painting the display base

I tried to paint the thing more less the same as bases of all gangers. So first I mixed devlan mud wash, a bit of smoke and lots of water. Diluted paint dries up a while but it is easier to control: you can add another layer whenever you think the base should be darker.

After that I added some deeper shadows using dark olive – once again heavily diluted. I chose this color because I also used it to paint bases rims of my gangers – this trick should unify models with the big base.

Wait patiently until the wash dries – the next step is drybrushing:
I started with bleached bone and then applied highlights – skull white. Both colors were used to paint bases of the gangers.

The base is ok but I want it dirty – I powdered some chalk (dark olive color) and applied it on the base. Chalk was sealed with matt spray but turpentine also works fine for this (I wrote about it in Gorkamorka Ork base text). Besides it's MUCH cheaper than ready to use dry pigments.

The last thing was painting the sockets. My first color choice was black but all in all I decided to use olive. I mixed some matt varnish with paint to protect the paint – minis will be put on the base after every game.

Done!

And here are pictures of the final thing taken in the photo tent: I know black background isn't the best idea but black t- shirt was the only think big enough to use as background – base is pretty large after all…


Once again I hope you found my article useful and once again I hope to update the site shortly. Cheers!