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....

Basing 'A': PVA & silica sand

This was my go to method of basing for a good number of years. I believe I found out how to do it off the website http://www.dropship.org.uk . The author (Carl Woodrow) has since migrated to a blog, although I must say I only discovered this in the last 5 minutes as I couldn't remember what the name of the original site was for years. I did remember his 'sand jackal' marines which allowed me to Google it though. Most interestingly (to myself), I think I first found dropship horizon, in the past the mecca for all matters 15mm, but hunting for Carl's site. And thus my interest in 15mm sci fi began.


Back to the point: Basing. This method is fairly slow (it takes multiple steps), but gives you a lot of control over the final colour of the ground. The layers of dry brushing give a bit more depth than the other methods I use now. One problem is that it isn't as robust, so chipping will occur over time, and the silica sand is white underneath, which makes damage quite noticeable. It is a very cheap approach.



We require:
-white (or carpenters in my case) glue
-silica sand (I procured from an aquarium shoppe)
-paint (black, yellowish, and khaki ish)
-flock/static grass
-1-2 crappy brush (1 for glue, 1 to drybrush)

The directions after the break.....