Tutorial: Dealing with tiny feet in basing

So there I was, putting together some minis for a client when I came across a common problem: Tiny, tiny feet on a model that needs to be glued directly to the base. Now, I know how to solve this problem and it's fairly straightforward, hence, a small tutorial. A tutorial-ette if you will.

A join is only as strong as its contact area allows it to be. That's why those slottabases or cast-on discs that most miniatures use are useful. They allow for a small foot while also giving a firm footing. Equally, in plastic it is less of an issue. The welding effect of the polystyrene cement makes for a strong join even with small contact areas. The model above? That is not plastic - nor is it resin for that matter - it's that restic stuff that a few manufacturers use. It can't be glued with polystyrene cement. That leaves only brittle, brittle superglue, and that needs special treatment.

So we've got a cleaned up miniature. You'll want to do some test fitting to see how the model stands best. You don't want to be pinning both feet so look for the one that is the "leading" foot: the one with the most weight on it. That will be the flattest on the floor so the best contact area.

Using a pin vice, aim into the bulk of the leg and drill away. You'll be wanting about a 4-5mm hole, any shallower and it won't resist shearing forces properly and won't work. For some models - especially female ones - this will be tough. I've replaced stiletto heels with a pin before in order to find enough surface area to drill into.

While you've got the pin vice out. Drill a hole into the base where the foot will lie, see? Those test fittings were useful. Shows you where to drill. If you've got a fancy solid cast resin base you can just drill all the way through and insert a wire through it like normal pinning. For the hollow plastic bases, you need another approach. I've tried using modelling putty, filler, all sorts, but the best and fastest way is to bend a length of paperclip wire into an 'L'-shape. Be generous with the length. It's a paperclip, so cheap as to be virtually free. Don't risk the join failing for a few mm of paperclip. Oh, and use bare metal paperclips, not those plastic wrapped ones. The plastic isn't properly adhered to the wire. It'll be like gluing to a painted surface, only as strong as the paint bond to the primer.

Push the wire through the base from underneath, then, using a generous amount of superglue, glue that sucker down. Superglue gap-fills on distances less than a mm or so, thus the generous amount helps to form a firmer bond. Usually this isn't the case, small amounts and very close bonds are how to make superglue be your friend. This is a round wire being glued to a flat sheet of plastic. It needs some extra help.

Now, dry-fit your model onto the wire. The amount sticking out between the foot and the base is the excess you need to cut off. Remove the model from the wire and trim down the wire by the amount sticking out. Once this is done just put superglue on the wire and the feet and stick it down.

And there you go! Like I say, this is straightforward, but I've got the process down to a fine art now and like they say: "It's only simple when you know how". With the increasing popularity of models in things like board games (this chap is from Shadows over Brimstone) but without the design experience that wargames manufacturers have, I foresee more of this kind of thing coming up. Now the knowledge is out in the world. Go forth, and break off your minis no more.

TTFN.

Workbench: Basic Groundwork

Greetings one and all and welcome to another one of my workbench articles. Today the theme is groundwork. Groundwork is essentially basing writ large for dioramas or terrain bases and needs a litte more effort than normal basing. First though, I ought to mention that this was something that I spontaneously decided to turn into a workbench article later in the process than normal. As a result we start in media res so to speak. I'll try to explain the early stages as best as I can!

Righto, to give a sense of scale this base is 15cm across and that is one of GW's plastic trees in the middle. Firstly - as this diorama is going under glass and is really a complicated way of suspending a Griffon - I needed to position the tree so that the model would fit in the dome. This done I started supergluing some slabs of slate around the tree to give the groundwork a bit of height and interest. Incidently we use slate a lot in modelling because it is "scale ambiguous". It looks the same whether it is massive or tiny, same layers and texture. As a result we can paint a small lump of slate and make it appear massive in scale. Not all rocks do this and you can really kill the look of a diorama with a rock that looks out of scale. I also glued a dried root to the base - a roughly circular disc of thick plasticard - to help the tree look more in place. Then it was sand time. Lots of it.

I have a trick for sanding large areas like this that helps to build up layers and height quickly: Use cheap pound-store superglue. The reason for this is that it is simultaneously dirt cheap (2 10g bottles for £1) and thin as water. Useless for glueing figures together but awesome for flowing around a base. I worked in patches, pouring superglue on then sanding the pool. This stuff is so thin that you can even just dump dry sand where you want it and then use capillary action to draw the superglue through the pile of sand. I finished the whole thing off with a wash of diluted PVA to help seal the surface as otherwise you might strip the sand off with drybrushing. With the groundwork solid as concrete (as let's face it, that's what we've made) I moved on to painting. It's all fairly basic so instead of taking you through each individual colour I'll tell you some principles. First, make the top highlight of your soil and rocks the same colour. Soil is made of the broken up local rocks mixed with organic matter and thus looks better if there is some of the rock colour in it. Trees are more grey than brown so use greys as your highlight colours and then give it a very thin wash of Athonian Camoshade - khaki/brown/green - to give it a mossy feel. It was around this point I decided to turn this into a workbench so... picture!

Glue isn't dry in any of these shots so ignore any white bits.

Though the tree is autmnal it won't be completely dead. I used canopy glue (a very thick, clear-drying PVA) to attach strands of ivy basing material up one side of the tree.

Even the rocks aren't dead, these are little moss tufts, essentially very, very short cropped static grass blobs that I PVA'd onto the stone to be lichen/moss.

Next came grass, now normally I would recommend only about 1/3 of a miniature's base to be covered in static grass. When doing groundwork it is pretty much the other way around! The base is the model and needs to have impact. Care needs to be taken with placement. If you just do blobs of grass it will look like a fresian cow. Think about where the grass will be growing most healthily and apply your glue there. Also, when flocking (I said flock) a larger area work in smaller patches - I worked on about a sixth at a time - and overload it with grass. Really tip it on, press it down and leave it a while before you tip it off and blow off the excess. This gives the grass time to adhere and create that clumpiness (totally a word) that we are after.

We could have left it there, it looked fine, but like most jobs in modelling it can be taken another step forward. In this case I used tufts of clump foliage (check out Tooltime - part III for a roundup of these products) to create... a shrubbery! Sorry, couldn't help it! When using this stuff, it helps to soak some dilute PVA into it (I use a glass eye-dropper) and squeeze it through the material. This stops it from falling apart. Now, this is almost finished but looks a little neat and tidy. Is there a gardener that is raking this forest?

Ding! There you go. Leaf litter simply glued down with dilute PVA. Now, there will be some of you who are currently yelling "BASIC groundwork?" at the screen. Let me assure you, none of this is difficult. It's just involved and needs some practice and reference (oh no, don't make me walk out in the countryside where the pretty scenery is...) to get right. Believe me, the groundwork experts are astonishing. I have seen dioramas where I had to be convinced that it wasn't a 1:1 photograph. Stunning. I'm happy with this sort of level though! Well, next time you see this it will have a griffon mounted on that tree and under glass so until then.

TTFN

What a Difference a Base Makes...

A few days ago I showed you all a 54mm Pegaso Ninja I painted, check it out now:

When models are intended purely for display it helps to make a presentation base for them to increase the visual impact of the work. Recently I had been getting curious about the Voodooworx range of resin display bases. Decent spread of sizes and acceptable prices. I got a 40mm round and a 40mm cube to check out.

The plinths (and isn't "plinth" a word that wants to be dirty but isn't?) come in a beautifully cast grey resin. There aren't any bubbles, voids or casting blocks. You can even see where Voodooworx sand down the bases to make them ready for instant usage.

I wanted to use a plain black base with the Kanji for Ninja. I used the computer to create a perfect 40mm square and then fit the Kanji into the centre of it. Printing out the design allowed me to flip it over and block in the design in graphite (pencil). The block was primed black and then the design masking taped to the block.

A quick rub with pencil over the top transferred the design to the block in a faint graphite shadow.

Once the design was transferred, the paper was removed and the design carefully painted in with Mithril Silver. Annoyingly the camera saw more of the black through the silver than is actually there, the design is solid silver.

Before I primed the block I laid down a masking tape shape of where the base of the model touches the surface it is placed on. That made sure that the glued join between the base and the model was strongest.

Glue is only as strong as the surface it is applied to, if you try and stick parts to a painted surface then you are only getting the strength of adhesion that the paint has. Not much in other words, I superglued the Ninja to the resin base.

I had previously test-fitted the Ninja to the block to ensure the alignment would look good.

And there you have it, a display miniature rather than a wargaming mini. It just finishes off the look and creates another source of visual interest with the Kanji. I can heartily recommend the Voodooworx plinths for this kind of work. The only problem would be if you wanted a wooden effect base as these resin ones only work for solid colour. Until next time.

TTFN

Black Cat Bases pt 1

Recently I have been doing some work for Black Cat Bases as a sort of studio painter, the first fruits of my labours should be turning up on their site soon but I thought I would give you a sneaky preview:

Bamboo Floor

Cobblestone Street

Grid Floor

Roads and Pavements

Swamplands

Victorian Street

Now normally I would be taking you through all of the steps I used to create these effects but that is part of the job that I have done for Black Cat. Every base and every variant has a detailed step-by-step tutorial and they should be going up on their site soon. I'll be working through the other bases in their range over the next few months and then moving on to their model range too! Check out their site and I'll let you know when the tutorials go up. Till next time:

Mulder has kitty to play with

TTFN

Tooltime - part 3 (Finishing)

Go to Tooltime - part 2 (painting)

And so at last we reach the end of our hard hat odyssey with the third and final part of Tooltime, today, it's all about finishing touches.

For me there are three elements to finishing off a model, transfers (decals), weathering and basing.

These two are the two big guns in my arsenal when it comes to transfers. Rather than go over their utility here I shall point you to the tutorial that I did a while ago and move along!

Once you have your transfers in place you can start with the weathering (if the model needs it). Most of the weathering that I do is performed with a brush and regular paint (see here for a tutorial) but just recently I had a few new toys turn up.

The first toy is this collection of weathering powders. I chose the Forgeworld ones because, bizarrely, they are some of the cheapest on the market. Now I am not going to pretend to be an expert on these as I have only just started using them. From what I have seen so far, you need to use them sparingly, be very, very careful about getting water on them as it turns them into paint and mix them together for transitions as they don't blend terribly well. Below are two examples of where I have used them recently.

I used a light dusting of Light Earth to enhance the tarmac texture of the road and Aged Rust on the manhole cover on the Hellboy figure. The Sorcerers cloak was an attempt at blending multiple earth shades to get a convincing dirt texture. Both look fairly nice!

The next new toy is a set of enamel weathering products and a pot of odorless turpentine. These enamel paints are handy for us because they can be feathered out with the turpentine without affecting the acrylic coat below. As a result you can get some very interesting effects. Check out the AK Interactive blog for some expert examples of what you can do with this stuff. The only model I have used these on so far is the sorcerer again:

I splodged generous amounts of Slimy Grime Dark onto the green parts (over a coat of Catachan Green) and then feathered it out with the turpentine to provide a nice realistic slimey film over the whole piece. Really looking forward to playing with some of the others!

Top Row: Modelling Sand, Leaf Litter, Mixed Leaves. Second row: Clump Foliage, Scatter, Grass Tufts, "Wasted Grass" Static Grass. Third Row: Cork boulders, Weed Tufts, Ivy. Front row: "Scorched Grass" Static Grass.

Finally we come to basing! Take a look at the array of products in the picture above. This is just part of my basing collection. Seriously folks you can't skimp on this stuff, it makes the difference between a good model and a great one. Here's a rundown of what you can see in the picture above:

Texture:

• Modelling sand: my basic "soil" looking tool. Pretty much every model I ever paint has some of this on it! Just glue it down with PVA then when dry wash it with a coat of PVA watered down to the consistency of milk. Once dry, you really have to go it some to dislodge it!
• Cork boulders: Tiny broken up pieces of cork, a nice analogue for larger stones that aren't slate! Living in Wales I can get hold of slate by just wandering out of my front door but these little cork bits look wonderful. Treat the same way as Modelling Sand.

Grass:

•  Static Grass: There are two examples of Static Grass in the photo, the baggie in the front is full of normal GW Scorched Grass, the tub at the far right is full of my own mix "Wasted Grass" which is a blend of a few Antenociti's Workshop grass colours to give a more realistic finish. Check out the difference below:

"Wasted Grass"

"Scorched Grass"

•  Scatter: This is an older form of basing texture only one step up from the old dyed sawdust approach. There isn't much in the way of grassiness but I find it very useful for the smaller Flames of War figures. See below for an example:

•  Grass Tufts: These are a fairly new idea in gaming. They are essentially pre-glued little tussocks of static grass. I do not believe that they should be used on their own. Instead they should enhance a base that already has static grass on it by adding texture. Below is an example:

 

Shrubbery:

• Coarse Turf: Essentialy a matrix of fine threads with scatter material glued to it that makes ace little bushes or, in larger pieces, whole hedgerows! You can see a piece of this material in the picture above.
• Weed tufts and Ivy: Just like Coarse turf and Grass Tufts these are pre-glued textures that simulate realistic foliage. I've used them most on my Warmachine figures so far:

•  Leaf litter: These are seed pods that look uncannily like 28mm scale fallen leaves! Antenociti do a lovely range of them. I can recommend the "Mixed" and "Litter" pots. Mixed allows you to simulate fresh fallen leaves or trailing plants up buildings as they still have some green colouration. Litter is what is used in the picture above to simulate autumn fall of leaves. Make sure to wash them in watered down PVA to make them stick as they are light and delicate!

 

There are other tools you can use for basing though, in the picture above are: a big bag of clump foliage for hedges and explosions (more later), some plasticard strip that should really have been in part 1 and some dried roots lifted from my garden as fallen logs. Make sure you pick ones with texture and movement, a stick will always look like a stick. A twisty stick will look like a tree! The following picture gives an example.

I have also painted the log, don't leave it in it's original colours as it will not have the "scale" quality you are going for.

Other bits! Barbed wire analogues, modelling chain, little bits of watches, picture hanging wire for tank tow ropes, steel ball bearings for rivets. All sorts. Keep your eyes open and hoard! It doesn't take much space.

The option above is the most expensive but very effective in certain circumstances. These are cast metal (or resin) bases. Mine come from Black Cat Bases and are mostly urban subjects (I can make organic stuff easily as you have seen! Here are some painted examples:

They give a great effect! I can announce with some excitement that I am preparing a series of tutorials for Black Cat Bases to help others get these effects so I shall link in as soon as they are finished! Anyway. That is all for now, and all for Tooltime for now. I will do occasional Tooltime spots when I get an awesome new toy and feel a desperate urge to share it with you all! Until then.

TTFN.