Hello Good people

To start with i want to say a big sorry to all those that have been expecting something from me recently. Life has gotten in the way quite a lot as my school will be starting in about 2 weeks and a lot of papers and things going on between us with payments and all that crap bla bla bla etc etc. Not gonna go into too much detail, but you get the idea :D

Anyway, today i will be doing a base tutorial. I have always loved urban bases. I guess this is because i feel it seems very logical to have the warhammer universe taking place in war torn cities across space where the whole battlefield is nothing but rubble. So therefore through out my years in the hobby i have tried to do them in many different ways. They all turn out quite well in the end and there are ltos of different ways to do them, but here is a very easy way that i do them. If you do use this method though try and maybe do it in bulk, because certain things take a while to dry and this will help maximize productivity!!! So ya. wouldnt want you to waste too much time eh???

Ok so straight to it!

Apart from the standard stuff like paints, brushes etc etc here is a list of what you need.


Now As you can see here there are things that most people may not have in their tool box. But i assure you all these things are very worthy investments. Not only do alot of these things last a long time, but the thing is that i think that bases are just as important a part of the model as the model itself. Why would you spend 40 hours on a character model just to put him on a regular base with just a bit of sand on it?? wont that be a little boring? (this is up to debate ofcourse as people say thats good and makes sure all the attention is on the model itself. I however think thats stupid.)

But here is a list of things

1) Vallejo Still water
2) Vallejo Surface Primer
3) one of the Vallejo Textures (this as you can see is red oxide)
4) 4 or 5 of the Vallejo Pigments and a pigment setting solution
5) a little piece of plasticard
6) a little bit of PVC Tubing
7) Some random military accessories from any hobby store. Here i have Barbed wire (15mm scale) and a metal beam or support of some kind. (these things add nice character to the base once completed.)
8) VERY IMPORTANT SLOTTA BASE

OK! So now. The base itself. well to start with you need to make sure its a slotta base. Ofcourse this isnt necessary but it will make it easier for you later on.

HERE WE GO. HANG ON TO YOUR HATS.

1)


First you need to carve out the base. As seen on the picture above use the slot as a measuring point for where the future water will be. Cut carefully and make sure that you dont end up snapping the base, coz the plastic is thick and if you apply too much pressure it will break in half. (for those that have been in the hobby a while you know it happens sometimes when the models where still in pewter that you would get a broken base. That sucked:(

2)


Glue the Base to the Plasticard Piece!

3)


Trim the sides of the plasticard sheet. Be careful when you do this. Try to cut it as close as possible to the base and then the rest you need to file down to get a nice and smooth finish. Try to not use a regular modelling file for this because they are quite rough and this will result in you getting very small nice scratches on the base which i think looks horrible later on. So what i do is i actualyl use a very soft nail file. They get the job done, are cheap and work very very nicely when you need a smooth finish. Anyway once you are done your base should look a little like this. 

4) 

Now on top of the base we are going to start placing down some thing which will help to add some shape to the finished base. In this case i just used a random piece of sprue that has been lying around and irritating me. But being as lazy as i am i haven thrown it away, but i guess that was good afterall. muahahaha. But as you can see here i added that piece to the base after i cut it in half. Then after that i also a small piece of pvc tubing which i also glued onto the base sticking out over the pit. Also at this point try to mount it on something like an old paint pot or a piece of cork or something

5) 

Now its time to break out the Vallejo Textures. I did a peoduct review on this earlier so you can check that out and see what type of texture you want to use as they are all slightly different. But i used Vallejo Red Oxide as i think the size is quite good. So once you are at this point jsut slap it on pretty much anywhere and everywhere (dont cover the pipe ofcourse silly) and then leave this to dry for a while. To apply this just use an old brush and dip it in and palce it on the base. As i said in my review of this stuff you can sculpt into it a bit as it is gel based so thats also really good. Try to not make it too smooth and all as we are trying to go for an organic and natural look with lots of bumps and crap and stuffs. so ya u see what i mean. Also its important to get inside the crater/pit. 

6)



Right  now this is an optional step. It is definitly not necessary but i just think it adds a nice little amount of detail to the base. So i added some small barbed wire (oh ya as i said use 15mm scale barbed wire) and also a small piece of the Beam and jsut kinda throw it in there somewhere, Mine is kinda in the pit. Reason i use 15mm scale wire is because its perfect size. Its very small and it you were to think of it, in regards to the 28mm figures that this base is for, if you put most other types of barbed wire by other large companies (no names mentioned hihihihi) then the barbed wire will pretty much be as thick as a electrical wire on a telephone pole. And thats not what we want. We want THIN and small Barbed wire. Something that looks real. So use this! But again as i said though its not necessary ofcourse not. So if you dont have the chance to use this well thats fine then. Skip this stage :) This is where the idea of doing this basing in bulk comes into play because now you have to Leave it to dry!

7) 


Next step is priming. First i based it with Vallejo Grey Primer, and then i just gave it a quick coat of Vallejo Black. Did this stage with an airbrush to speed it up. 

8)







First over this black coat i added a heavy drybrush of Black and white mix to the baseAt this point it was time to add some other colors to the base so to start with i used Vallejo Cold Grey, and gave it a nice drybrush of this color, then i continued with Vallejo Model Air White to do the next lightest dry brush.


Then after this it was time to work on the metallics! 

9) 

So first when you work with metallic keep in mind that your base can be a similar color but dont make it too similar coz you will loose the detail of the metallics. So what i did was i used Vallejo Model air Steel and mixed in a small amount of black to give it a nice darker steel look. leave this to dry for a while and this is where things start to get interesting ;) BRING OUT THE PIGMENTS!

10)


Pigments are fun to work with and always give great results even if you arent an expert at using them so they are very user friendly. Especially the Vallejo Pigments. Some pigments set quite hard without any setting solutions and if you do screw up are a B*tch of get off. These however are quite good. Much more forgiving than some others i have tried before. So here what i did was that i did some brief highlighting work on the metallics then i did the pigments. For the pipe i used the Vallejo Natural Iron Oxide Pigment. Its a nice dark blackish grey color which looks very good on pipes, and then i used a fifty fifty mix of the dark red and burnt sienna pigments on the beam. Once this was done i set them and left that to dry for a minute! Once this is done, paint the rim of the base black as well. 

11) 


Vallejo still water. Closest thing you can come to liquid gold. Absolutely wonderful to work with. What i did was that for this specific example i mixed it with a brownish pigment. This adds a realyl nice effect later on as you will see. However bear in midn that this makes it murky, so you wont be able to see much through it later. This lets you be in control of what you want as a result. Ofcourse you can add things like green inks instead, this still leaves is see through and you will be able to see the bottom of the pit or if you have something like maybe a body or whatever underneath it can still be seen. So keep this is mind. 




You dont need too much pigment, but add enough to get what you want. Also when doing this step try to avoid wasting. So do a little first and if its not enough make some more :) But basically at this point once you have mixed in the pigment it should look a little like this! Then this is pretty much the last stage. Just pour this mix into the pit and let it dry! it takes a pretty long time so leave it over night atleast.

12)


TADAAAAAAAA

This is what it looks like when its done!




Some things to bear in mind. When you are doing the pit, try to make the whole look as natural as possible. This tutorial doesnt really showcase this well as i made this specifically for the sake of the tutorial and i didnt have time to do all this properly but where in the hell are you going to see a battefield where there is a carter/pit that is a perfect semi circle????!!!!??? Nowhere right??? so jsut keep these things in mind ok! Be creative and do what you want! Try new things, and so on. You have the freedom to do what you want here so just have fun!!!