Forest Litter Basing Tutorial...

I've seen a lot of tutorial on how people do their forest type bases over the years.  I learned some basic things while working with Mike Butcher years ago on team army for Adepticon where we based the both of our factions the same.  I've expanded off of that over the years.  I'm currently doing a little basing and thought I would give out some of my thoughts on it.  Above you see pictured some of my basic ingredients for the initial part of the basing, the granular portion.  They consist of two types of HO Scale railroad ballast, the black sand and the white sand, then we have some pieces of slate, some fine crushed dolomite that is easily found in the wilds here in Wisconsin, some crushed pieces of slate, and the fake rocks in the lower right corner which is simply Apoxie Sculp smashed with a hammer.

Below are some of the grasses that I use on various projects from a variety of suppliers, which you can get in bulk far cheaper from model railroad companies that you can from war games suppliers.  Pictured are a green and dead grass colored static grass, clumps of static grass flock and what I like to call straw in middle and upper right.

For most of the static grass and the forest litter I will use super glues of which there are a variety.  The "Thin" with the pink label is what I use for the forest litter, it is super thin and flows like water, its also sometimes called "Fast".

CAUTION:  USE THIN IN ONLY A WELL VENTILATED AREA. AND WEAR EYE PROTECTION!!  

Yes the thin has a super hot formula and accelerent in it.  If it gets in your eye it will cure almost immediately.  If you want to glue your fingers together, this is the stuff.  

 Here you see a scrap of plasti-card with some granular flock that I glued down.

You can see its the same stuff that I used on a Viking and my Romans.

Below is what I use for my forest flock litter, Italian Seasoning.  Its from the bargain bin of your local grocery.   It has no powder in it, that is important.  You do not want powder.  Its essentially all dried kind of crushed leaves.  

Take a pinch of the seasoning, sprinkle in the places that you want for a nice random look.

Take the "Thin" and place drops over the seasoning you want to keep on the base.

Drips like water.....

When you have what you want stuck down, clean up the debris.  The Thin coats the leaves of the seasoning and reinforces the texture in addition to adhering it to the base. The side benefit of using this is if you put your miniatures in a sealed bin for storage, when you open that bin it will have a nice Italian smell.

Below you see what it looks like on a raw base.

Then add or before, add some rocks. My favorites are slate and fake.  Glue where you want.

Some finished painted examples below:

That's it for now.

Green Stuff Cloth Tutorial - Space Marines and Norman Horses

Redmanphill over at the Subject to Stupidity blog requested that I do a tutorial of how I do cloth out of greenstuff or brownstuff.  So if you don't like this tutorial, blame him.  Anyways I'll do this with two items that I'm converting that don't have anything in common, other than being miniatures:  Norman Horses and Space Marines.  So I have you 40k and Ancients guys both covered.  This is a relatively simple method to use, yields relatively simple looking cloth, and will not give you a cloth look with a lot of bubbles or fingerprints, unless your name is Tom Schadle.

First thing I need is a relatively good piece of plastic that the green stuff or brown stuff does not stick very well to.  That is generally a higher quality zip lock bag, not your typical thin plastic sandwich bag but something more industrial, or the film that they use to ship the two part GS in.  So here I have placed some water on the plastic, get it a bit wet.  Take some GS and flatten it out in between your fingers and get the basic shape.  Place that over the wet spot on the plastic.  Now we will smooth that out and get its thickness to a relatively consistent thickness.  To smooth out the GS, I will use tool number 1, that we so back in my Armor Plate tutorial.

 
Matter of fact we'll use tools #1, 2, 3, and 6.  In reality you only need a tool like #1 or 'c' and something that looks like a toothpick (a wet toothpick will work). 

Next I cut it to the desired shape. Use the color shaper or spatula end of a metal sculpting tool to further flatten the GS.  This one will be for the Norman Horse, a bit bigger piece than would be used for the space marine tabbard. 

Let it set up and stiffen 5 minutes or so.

Now if you use a small piece of plastic film, you could pick it up by the film and apply it to the miniature or peel the film off gently and apply it to the miniature. If you peel be aware of finger prints and its important to let the GS set up for a bit and stiffen. Once on the miniature you will need to manipulate it.

For this, I'm using a very good sized zip lock bag, so I will peel it off very gently with the xacto. 

Now I place it on the horse.

Here on the horse caparison I blended the upper edge into the horse body simply with my fingers. To do the blending moisten your finger and drag it across the GS until it blends smoothly into the plastic.



The further smooth out spots where my fingers don't fit, I use the tools and press and move the GS into those areas. 

I also need a crease in the center for the seem holding the caparison together.  I do that with the knife edge of the spatula tool.

Next I use the metal toothpick like tool, the conical color shaper, metal toothpick 90 degree bend, color shaper chisel point, or a bent wire tool to add creases or folds. You can also add folds by gently bending the GS into a shape.

The Space Marine tabard is very much done the same way.  Get the general shape.

Smooth out.

 Cut to shape.

Peel it off and I apply the piece of GS to the spot where the torso is glued to. 

On the above I used the tooth pick tool to make the 'V' coming off the pelvic area.  Below I added a few more creases with the tools, and then added a torso to make sure everything blends in.

Wow.  Long post.  Next time I'll show how I do drapings off shoulder pads and legs of the spacemarine, when I begin my space marine project.

Movement Tray, Part 4 and Forest Litter Basing Tutorial

Finishing up my movement tray tutorial, onto the flocking of the trays and showing of my techniques for also obtaining a forest litter. So in reality this is a two for one tutorial.

Items needed:

· Bases and Movement Trays, ;)

· Sand or Model Railroad ballast

· Italian Seasoning, the type without any powders

· Glue: White Glue, Elmers Glue, Super Glue

· Thin or Fast Super Glue (Consistency of Water)

Pictured below is one of my new Red Box Games marauders, another gorgeous Tre Manor sculpt, with a blank base. For these examples I’m going to use Gorilla Superglue simply because it will cure quicker than White Glue or Elmer’s Glue. 

I applied the glue to the base and spread it using a toothpick, added a fake rock, and then applied an HO Scale Model Railroad Ballast as the flock. Then I simply tipped the base and cleaned off the excess.

Next I take the Italian Seasoning. Apply a pinch of it randomly here and there on the base. Then you use the Thin or Fast Super Glue and apply some drops of it over the Italian Seasoning.

< I RECOMMEND YOU WEAR EYE PROTECTION!!>> Definitely be aware of my warning, this glue has a lot of accelerant in it and if gets on exposed skin it will be warm to hot. It will almost instantly stick your eye lid to your eye ball if you get it in your eyes. I know someone this has happened to, wear glasses or goggles.   Also make sure as always with superglues that you have adequate ventilation. READ ALL OF THE WARNING LABELS.   Now that is out of the way, a drop here and there over the seasoning will do two things, stick it to the base and reinforce the seasonings herbs to where they can hold up to a drybrushing of paint later.

After that is done, tip the base and remove the excess, and you get what is shown below.

 

And with the movement tray it is just a bigger version of the base. So the final look is what is shown below.

After that is up to you to do the painting. Most of the time with the seasoning I will stipple and drybrush 3-5 colors on it for the Warriors of Chaos, to get the end product as shown in the pic below.

There you have it, how I do my movement trays and how I do a forest litter basing.

Warhammer Movement Tray Tutorial ... Part 3.1 Addendum

Our friend Mr. Bugman, NAVARRO (whose blog is in my blog list #2, check it out), reminded me of using a tooth brush to texture putty.  Something I do not do to often, and since my move I'm still looking for all my tools, but I still have the old soft bristled brush I use for removing paint.  So onto the second movement tray, similar method as the previous, but with adding an additional texture with the brush this time around the rock areas.

 One thing that is always difficult with spreading glue and sticking down the flock is control, often you get a small amount of glue somewhere you do not want it or when applying the flock and you press it in slightly it spreads in the wrong locations.

So I added the fake rocks and then commenced adding texture around the rocks in two ways.  One with the brush and the other with pressing a rock into the regular putty surface.   With the brush you can poke and sweep with it.

This is how it comes out, will add a bit more variety with the surface when I start adding the flock.  The flock I will be using is a HO Scale railroad ballast.  That will be in Part 4.

So there we are, another method that one can use.  Part 4 will be flocking and forest litter basing.