How do I base a miniature?

Basing is the highest return on effort in the whole hobby. Ten minutes of texture, a drybrush and a painted rim will make an ordinary paint job look deliberate, and no amount of skill on the model itself compensates for a bare black plastic disc underneath it.

What you'll need

• Texture paste, fine filler or PVA and sand
• Fine grit, small stones or cork chips (optional)
• A base colour and a lighter tone for drybrushing
• Static grass or clump foliage tufts (optional)
• PVA glue and a matt varnish

Step by step

1. Fill the slot before anything else.Most plastic bases have a slot for the figure tab. Fill it with plastic card, filler or a scrap of sprue so the finished base has no visible hole. It is the detail that most obviously marks an unfinished base.
2. Do the basing before the model is fixed on, if you can.Texture paste and PVA on finished paintwork is very hard to remove. Base the disc separately and glue the painted figure on at the end, or mask the figure carefully.
3. Spread texture across the top and stop short of the rim.Leave a clean band of bare plastic around the outer edge, a couple of millimetres wide. That band is what you paint as the rim, and a base with texture spilling over the edge always reads as untidy.
4. Press grit in while the paste is soft.Stones, grit, cork chips and sand all key into wet paste and stay there. Scattered onto a dry surface and glued on top, they knock off. Vary the sizes — uniform grit reads as a texture rather than as ground.
5. Let it dry completely before painting.Texture paste and filler shrink and crack if painted while damp, and PVA under sand takes longer than it looks. Overnight is safest.
6. Base coat the whole texture in one dark tone.A dark brown for earth, a dark grey for stone, a dark greenish brown for undergrowth. It goes into every crevice and gives the drybrush something to sit on.
7. Drybrush a lighter tone over it.Load the brush, wipe almost all the paint out onto kitchen roll, then flick the nearly dry bristles across the surface. Paint catches only on the high points and the texture appears instantly. Two passes, each lighter and lighter, is better than one.
8. Add tufts last, off-centre and in odd numbers.Two or three clumps of static grass or foliage, placed asymmetrically, never spread evenly over the surface. Evenly distributed grass reads as carpet. Leave areas of bare ground.
9. Paint the rim one flat colour in a clean line.Black, dark brown or a colour matched to your gaming table. Turn the base while holding the brush still to get the line even. This one step frames everything and makes a shelf of models look like a set.
10. Seal it.A matt varnish over the base, avoiding the tufts if they are the kind that flatten. Bases take the most handling of any part of a model and unsealed drybrushing rubs straight off.

Tips

• Base the whole unit at once with the same materials and the same colours. A consistent base across an army is what makes it read as one force, and it is far quicker in a batch.
• Cork bark broken by hand gives excellent rock shapes for almost nothing, and it is light enough not to unbalance the model.
• Painting the rim last, after everything else is finished and sealed, lets you cover any texture or paint that has crept over the edge.

Common mistakes

• Texture carried over the rim — It cannot be cleaned up once painted and sealed, and it makes the model look like it is standing in spilled sand. Wipe the rim clean while the paste is still wet.
• Basing after the model is painted and glued — Paste, glue and grit end up on finished paintwork, and static grass sticks to everything. Base first, or mask the figure thoroughly.
• Spreading grass evenly across the whole base — Real ground is patchy. Even coverage reads as a green carpet and looks worse than bare textured earth.
• Leaving the rim unpainted — A ring of bare grey or black plastic around every model draws the eye more than anything on the base. It takes seconds and it is the single highest-impact step.

If it doesn't work

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