Ms Funnymoney and Bases, bases everywhere...

Introducing Pirate Viking Painting's brand new lab assistant:

She started out life as a Reaper Miniatures Professor Laura Pringle but has been demoted a little as her new role and responsibilities don't really merit a Professor rank. What role is this? I hear you cry. She is going to be PVP's scale double. I realised that it is often hard to tell how large a figure is on these pages. You look at a magnified digital photograph and it is impossible to determine the height of the model without context. Now, I could do something really boring and put a ruler in or something but I felt that having an able lab assistant to provide context would look much nicer. To see the difference this makes check out the photos below:

 (Yes that is a work in progress Company Champion, sneak previews!)

Somewhat easier to tell the sizes eh? I had intended to do a set of shots with her against common objects for scale. Sadly however she is a pain in the bum to "cut" from the digital images when shot against my standard white background. Hence I shall mock up a dark background to shoot scale images and throw up a scale page at a later date. For now, we are calling her Ms. Funnymoney as a joke on M's secretary, if anyone comes up with something better then she might be renamed! Something I am very happy with on this figure is her base:

I sculpted this one myself, I roughly filled the base with Squadron Green Putty and crudely smoothed it off, deliberately leaving lumps and bumps. Once it had dried to the crumbly stage I sanded it down to meet the edge of the base. I cut lines into the putty to be the grouting and then sanded down again. I quite like the effect and it was fairly easy to achieve. However, I have found something much, much better...

I got some shiny new things this week. Black Cat Bases intriegued me with their range of metal base inserts for the "Warmachine" style bases. I picked up a few packs as the basing on my Dr Who and Hot Fuzz figures was not to my satisfaction. They are absolutely fantastic, reletively clean cast. Very fast service and intelligent sculpting (lots of "professional" bases just have a lump of "stuff" in the middle, preventing you from attaching your figures in a believable way).

Once painted they have a lovely realistic feel. These are from their urban and victorian street ranges. I intend to do full step by step tutorials on how to get this kind of effect from your bases when I have time. For now, a quick run down: The victorian bases were painted first with Terracotta (an old Citadel paint now available from Vallejo Game Colour). I then picked out individual stones, being careful to avoid any sense of pattern. The colours for these stones were mixed from Terracotta with dabs of other shades added, I don't remember exactly which shades but I know that Khemri Brown; Scorched Brown; Fortress Grey; Cathan Brown and even Dwarf Flesh were among them. I then drybrushed the entire base with a mix of Terracotta and Fortress grey as a unifying highlight. The use of a common base shade and highlight binds the base together. I then washed the base in a mix of Devlan Mud and Badab Black.

The urban bases were base coated in Charadon Granite. Drybrushed highlights of a mix of Charadon Granite and first Codex Grey then Fortress Grey followed. I lined the grouting with thinned Dheneb Stone and then washed the concrete with a couple of very thin layers of Graveyard Earth to dirty it up. The tarmac was a mix of Charadon Granite and Chaos Black, washed in Badab Black. The same thinned Graveyard Earth wash was run over the tarmac and job done!

Adding the models to the bases was a simple matter of snapping off the plastic bases. Snipping off the metal tag and dremel-ing the feet flat to get a decent bond. So let's check out the results!

I felt that the Doctor and his companions would look better on old fashioned urban bases than the grass I had stuck them on before. I really like 'em on the Black Cat inserts. Really finish off the model.

Likewise, the delectable Miss Pond looks a good deal better on a victorian street and as for K9:

Those tiny wheels will be much happier on brick than grass. Finally, lets check out what the Hot Fuzz boys look like.

Much, much better. Really liking the finished effects. You will definately be seeing more of Black Cat's work on these pages. As for the future: with the sneak preview above you might be getting the impression that a Blood Angels command squad is in the offing as well as more Death Korps. Till then...

TTFN