Half Brick Easy Basing Tutorial

 by Gareson
I often see, either on the gaming table or the internet, painted minis that are finished up except for basing.  Now of course for the fanciest basing you'll really need to pre-sculpt or integrate the details ahead of time(see some of Adary's great articles on Just the Bases).  However, if your mini is all painted up and glued onto the base, there are still some nice basing effects can you achieve "around" the planted mini.  There's always simple basing with sand(see this article), but one of my favorites is something I call the "Half Brick" or "Ruined Road" effect.  The concept here is that the base depicts a decayed roadway or tiled chamber which has eroded so that earth or dirt covers half of the base.

For this tutorial I am going to use a Daughter of the Flame mini from Privateer Press(Warmachine).  She's all painted up(more or less) but needs a nice base.  Now of course PP bases, as with most miniature companies, are black discs...mine only appears grey because I glued the figure onto the base before I used my grey primer:

In the pic above you can clearly see the indentation where the metal tab on the bottom of the mini inserts into the "slot" on the base.  Obviously our basing effect will need to erase that(which it will).

Step 1: Creating the Brick(or stone) Effect

For this step you can use any number of materials to create your brick material.  You can use Green Stuff(or any two part modeling putty), spackle(filler) or Vallejo stone texture effect.  However, for this tutorial I will use my preferred material: Milliput.

I like Milliput because it is a simple two part putty that is easy to mix, work with, and, most importantly, dries and hardens fairly quickly.  Within a couple of hours of mixing and applying the Milliput you can paint over it(something like Green Stuff would take longer).

I mix up a little bit of Milliput and I apply a small ball to the base on the side where I want the brick.  Now certainly you could carefully work around the mini's feet and do the entire base in 'brick', but again, I'm doing a "Ruined Road" style.  With your finger and/or the flat side of an x-acto knife blade, work the Milliput into a flat shape that covers roughly half the base.  I would suggest wetting your fingers or knife blade with a little water because the Milliput is a little tacky.

You'll notice that I've not completely covered the slot on the base; this is not a problem because our sand texture will take care of that later.

Now I take my x-acto knife and cut vertical lines in to establish the rows of bricks...making the lines roughly parallel and equidistant from one another.  Try not to push too hard all the way to the base as you carve these lines as you could cause the Milliput to shift and separate...just gently scribe in the lines.

Now I have gone back with the knife and etched in the horizontal(well really they are at a 45 degree angle in the photo) lines to create the separate bricks of this road(or chamber floor).  At this point the brick effect looks pretty good but to create a little more of a rough stone or weathered effect...

I use and old drybrush and lightly stipple indentations into the Milliput surface.  I can also make larger dents, or even cracks, with the x-acto knife.  The photo doesn't show it on this bright Milliput, but there are some nice surface irregularities that will show up layer with a wash(see below).

Step 2: Painting the Bricks

Painting the finished bricks is easy!  Now usually when I am doing this type of basing I depict grey stone or red bricks, but for this mini I want something that looks somewhat more arid as is the setting where you'll often find the Protectorate of Menoth units operating so I will be working with tan.

After a couple of hours after applying the Milliput(with a little help from hot lamps), I basecoat the brick surface with Reaper's Tusk Ivory from their HD series of paints(any light tan would do the same thing).  The wet paint above is not very visible, nor are the brick details, but we'll fix that with the next step.

After the basecoat is completely dry, I thin down(with water) some Sepia Ink from Vallejo's Game Colors line.  I generously apply this over my bricks and make sure the entire surface gets this wash.  The details in the bricks are starting to pop now...including the irregularities that we stippled in.  You could go back and drybrush on your basecoat color to highlight the raised details(or even line/block in some shading), but we'll keep it simple here.  Of course if you were simulating grey stone bricks I would suggest a light grey basecoat followed by a black wash. 

Step 3:  Sand Texture 

Well, as this is a "Half Brick" base effect we need to do something with the other half.  We're going to apply a simple dirt texture using sand.  For a thorough tutorial on this simple basing technique you can see this article(which includes a video).  However, so we can be thorough here, let's do a quick walkthrough....

After the brick "wash" has completely dried, take watered-down glue(or Mod Podge is my preference) and apply it to the other half of the mini's base. Make sure you not only cover the entire non-brick side, but that you overlap a little and apply some adhesive over the edge of the brick(as shown above).

Dip your miniature in sand, blow off any loose grit, and now you have texture on the other half of your base.

Step 4: Paint the "Dirt"

After your sand has dried you can quickly paint it up to look like dirt.

I use a simple approach of  (1)Dark Brown Basecoat (2)Dark Tan Highlight and a (3)Light Tan Highlight.  In the pic above you can see the three particular paints I used(P3 Battlefield Brown, Beast Hide and Menoth White Base)...but any substitutes would work just as well.  The highlights were simply applied used dry-brushing to bring out the texture of the sand(dirt). 

Step 5: Paint the Base Lip
Well, with all that Milliput, sand and paint, the lip of your base needs to be cleaned up to finish your model(especially as mine was primed grey as previously mentioned).  At this point you want to find a nice black(I like Reaper Pro Series Faded Black) and paint the lip or round edge of your base.  It's not shown here, but I attach my mini to a temporary stand(poster putty on top of an old paint pot) so I can get all around the base neatly.

In the end, here is the final effect...

Now the tutorial above may make this seem like a long process but to be honest it is quick, easy and painless.  I personally think its a great way to give an already painted and mounted miniature a respectful base with a little something beyond just dirt texture.  In the end you could add a little foliage or moss to the base...but I like the simple, desolate look of the base as is in most cases.

***Update*** Added a three part video tutorial for the effect above...
(double click on videos to enlarge them)

I hope you found this tutorial helpful and can make use of it in the future...thanks for reading/viewing!
Happy Wargaming Everybody, 
~Gareson

Basing 101: Dirt Texture

 by Gareson
There are few things as sad as a wonderfully painted miniature on a plain, undecorated base....especially when a basic texture effect is so easily achieved cheaply and quickly.  This is Basing 101: using sand as dirt texture for your wargaming mini.  Now for veterans this is a 'no brainer'...a tried and tested method for quickly getting your mini finished and table-ready.  So my audience for this post are mainly those new to the hobby(although hopefully there will be a trick or two of some use to veterans as well).

Here is my sad little Kossite Woodsman who is embarrassed by his plain base.  Now Kossites, according to Warmachine rules, can deploy onto the table later in the game using their "Ambush" tactic.  This guy, however, might resist ever coming on to the table for the shame of his undecorated base!...
(click on any images for larger pictures if needed)

The good news is that with some inexpensive tools, and minimal time, he will have a base he can be proud of!  Let's talk materials:  sand, old paint brush & Mod Podge(or white glue)...that's it.  Let's talk sand first.  For about $5 you can get a bag of sand at the hardware store that will likely be all that you'll ever use.  What you are looking for is a sand with a natural, beach-like texture which has variable grains in it.  I like Quikrete's Play Sand(but if you live near a beach, nature has already provided of course).

But be careful with "Play Sand"...you don't want the uniform, bleached-white stuff.  This also goes for "Craft" or "Scenic" sand like you'll find at Michael's...its a processed, fine grit sand that won't look natural when you paint it..don't use it. 

As far as adhesive you can go two routes; you can use watered down white glue or a craft sealer such as Mod Podge.  I like Mod Podge because it essentially is watered-down glue right out of the container...no need for an extra step! Use and old paint brush(not one for miniature details)...you can clean it up with water afterwards(white glue and Mod Podge are both water-based)...but why use a nice brush if you don't have to?

With materials out of the way, let's talk process(and uber-easy process).

Step 1: Applying Adhesive-Avoiding the miniature itself, apply the Mod Podge(or glue) around the base of the miniature.  Also try to avoid getting the adhesive on the outside lip of the base.  If there is a little "dip"(recess) where the slotted bottom of the figure is embedded, be sure to fill it in with your adhesive.

Step 2: Applying Sand-Take your miniature and "dip" it into your sand container in a sidways motion, making sure the base is submerged in the sand.  Once the base is saturated with sand, tilt the figure sideways and shake off excess grit.  Also, after you take out the mini, blow on its base to remove any loose sand. 

Step 3: Sand Clean-Up-Look at your mini, if there is sand glued on the outside of the lip, simply use your finger to wipe it off(so that the round edge of your base remains untextured). 

At the tip of the red arrow you can see the excess

 sand that I will wipe off.

At this point your mini should look something like this...

After letting the sand dry(30 minutes should do) you can apply a base coat of paint to your miniature.  I take a three step, quick approach to this for simple dirt basing.  I use a basecoat of P3's Battlefield Brown(Dark Brown), followed by successively drybrushed highlights of P3 Beast Hide(Dark Tan) and then P3 Menoth White Base(Light Tan/Beige).  Here is my mini and my paints readied....

Step 4:  Basecoat Paint-  Open your Battlefield Brown(or similar paint) paint pot.  Load your brush with water before dipping it into the paint...we want a "runny" load of paint on the brush.  When you put the tip of your watered-down paint on the base, the paint will be "soaked up" by the dry sand and naturally travel across the base on its own.  The beauty of this is that you don't need to put your brush near the feet of your mini(or cape, etc.) and risk painting over your miniature.  It's a neat trick...

Of course, if you use dropper bottles for your paint(such as Vallejo, Reaper), just water down your paint on your palette.  Whichever method you employ, don't water down your paint too much or there won't be enough pigment and the sand's natural color will show through...experiment to get the blance right(you can always paint over your first layer if it was too thin).  Your basecoated mini should be left to dry before you go on to the next step(put it under a hot lamp to speed up the process if you want).

Step 5: First Highlight- Time for some drybrushing fun.  Take your middle hue(mine is P3 Beast Hide) and grab a nice drybrush.  Put some paint on the tip of your brush and wipe off most of it on a paper towel until just a little pigment is remaining.  Drybrush the base of your figure in a sideways motion make the sand grain details start to "pop".  I don't worry if I hit the feet/boots of the figure a little as this gives them a traveled, dusty look...but you can avoid this if you so choose.

Step 6: Second(High) Highlight- Now we're going to emulate Step 5 but with a lighter color(P3 Menoth White Base/light tan).  You don't need to clean your brush in between steps 5 & 6 so long as you brushed off most of your paint from step 5.  Load the tip of your brush with your lightest paint and brush most of it off on a paper towel(as with previous step).  Drybrush this color onto your base to further accentuate the dirt(sand) details.  You're almost done!

Step 7: Base Clean-Up- Well at this point with all the sand texturing, base-coating and drybrushing, the side lip of your base likely needs a little cleaning up.  We're going to go around the lip of the mini with a flat black paint to finish him(I actually MUST do this because, as you can see, I had primed my miniature in grey).  For this step I like to attach my mini to an old paint pot(or bottlecap) using a little dab of poster putty.  This allows me to paint around the edges neatly and allows the paint to dry without making contact with your desk surface.  You can see the simple process below...

Ignore the paint pot color, its just being used as a temporary base.

And that's about it!  Now a couple of things to keep in mind...
1.  The dirt texture looks nice enough, and is table ready,  but you can always add details like static grass, grass tufts, leaf scatter, moss(see this tutorial) or snow(which is what this Kossite will be getting!).
2.  In the tutorial I painted just one mini...if its a unit you would do one step at a time for all your minis(as a batch).
3.  By changing the hues you can use the same texture for a differently themed base.  Want your sand to represent a desert base?...use Beast Hide(Dark Tan) as your base and then highlight with Menoth White Base(light tan/beige) and then Menoth White Highlight(ivory) successively.  

If you would prefer a video walkthrough of this simple method, I have uploaded one to my Youtube Channel.  You can watch the embedded videos below(or double click on them for full screen, HD versions):