Basing 'B': Pumice Gel Medium and Paint

Base on the left. The static grass was over done....

In my continued look at basing methods, I go to my second method, which I switch to a few years ago. I had decided that method 'A' (pva and sand) took a while to paint, and wasn't as robust as I'd like. When damage occurred it was fairly obvious. I suspect I stumbled onto gel mediums on the interwebz but it's possible I spotted it in the art store and started looking into it afterward.






In any event, there are MANY types of gel mediums that artists add to their paints to create cool textured effects. Crackle medium I think is used by some gamers to create shattered ice effects. I choose to use a coarse medium so it looks dirt like.

The required items are simpler: coarse pumice gel medium, paint (of your colour choice), and a spreader (I use some clay carving tools). 

The complete writeup after the jump....

 Mix some pumice medium with your paint colour of choice. I had black in the picture above, but quickly remembered I didn't need to deal with black first. Jump to your basic (or even final) colour.

Ignore the PVA to the left, it's left over from another project.






Smear on the mix direct to the base. Keep in mind the gel medium dried HARD. So take the time to clear it off your figure with the spreader tool....preferably damped with excess water, so you don't just mash it around more.

White down the sides of the base as well to clear away excess paint/medium/garbage.

At this point you could even decide you are happy with the result. The picture here is still slightly damp, but this is largely how it looks. It hardly needs dry brushing, but it could probably benefit from it (I don't bother typically).


Final step is application of static grass. I botched this step by leaving loads of grass on and coming back later to tap it off. It looked worse than normal, didn't stand up well, and I over covered it.

I'm a fan of about 25-33% coverage. What I ended up here was too much. Serves me right for not doing it so long.

An important part of making grass look good (i.e. better than this), is to flick the bottom of the base hard, after application to pva glue, in order to get the loose fibers off, and the stuck fibers standing up a bit.

Pros: 
-1 step application plus vegetation.
-No multiple painting steps required (although an option)
-Control over the colour you want to use
-Durable and damage is less obvious

Cons:
-It's more expansive, the gel mediums aren't exactly cheap. This tub has lasted me quite a while....but it's certainly not a frugal option like sand and glue.
-I suspect rebasing will be more tricky.


Strangely find method 'A' to be more pleasing to work on......but B is faster and better in my mind.