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Other Stuff => General Wargames and Hobby Discussion => Topic started by: Mick_in_Switzerland on 23 November 2017, 08:34:37 AM
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I was just wondering about the history of basing.
I built models and wargamed from the 1970s to about 1982 and then stopped for nearly 20 years.
In the 1980s, my armies had hardboard bases, cut at home.
They were painted snooker table green with a sprinkle of sawdust type flock.
When I restarted, it was with the GW Lord of the Rings range, so about 2001 or 2002.
I can remember that the sand and static grass technique was regarded as quite new and revolutionary as most things were still based with flock.
Do you remember who started this type of basing and when?
Was it a GW innovation or had it existed before?
Was it Foundry?
(A lot of their products are shown based with sand and I think they are from the 1990s.)
Best Regards
Mick
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I have no idea but I'm curious to hear what people have to say about this tidbit of hobby history.
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The classic style from the 80s was by the late great Peter Gilder. Painted tetrion
filler green with yellow ish clumps. Done well it looks good but rather dated by today's techniques.
I think the new style came about largely from the Fantasy element and has been adopted by all since this century.
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Back when I started in the mid-1990s, we used static grass and grassmats extensively for scenery pieces (due to being from a modelling/model railroad background).
For actual figure bases, we went with the flow and did sand-covered slottas in Goblin Green, or Dark Green with black rims when we made the switch to Warzone 2ed.
I recall some Wargames Illustrated pics from those days that featured static grass on small-scale (15mm and 20mm) multibases. The first "company approach" I recall would indeed be the Wargames Foundry catalogue pages from around 1998 (Darkest Africa and the like). There is some mention of using flock on miniature bases in the 3rd Edition Warhammer Fantasy rulebook, IIRC, but nothing on a holistic scale.
The first project I can remember where I used static grass on figure bases would have been a Space Marine army back around 1999-2000. Browns for the textured base and various pale greens for the static grass. Pretty much never went back, except for the odd project where it would not have been suitable, stylistically.
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I remember in the late 80's or early 90's, my uncle bought me a bag of flock - the traditional green sawdust railway modelling flock (he being a railways modeller) as a gift. I think I still have it, virtually unused!
It took me a while to grasp the basics of just putting static grass on in small clumps, because I was covering the base in it, like with the old style flock. This meant the rest of the base needed texture though, hence the sand.
Then when tufts became popular this century, I held out for a while, regarding them as some passing trendy phase, but now I almost exclusively use them instead. I do like to drybrush a bit of green onto the sand as well, to look like moss or very low grass shoots.
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Been using static grass/sand since the early 1990s. Prior to that it was painted filler and flock.
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I have been using the sand/pva mix then static grass since the early 80s. But strangely only on my 54mm figs. I didn't base my 20s and 25s at all. Was quite annoyed when workshop started using slottabases.
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I can claim to using pepper since the 1980s - I moved on to sand in the '90s, at least I distinctly remember the base of a giant scorpion in a Warhammer game. :D
Trying to remember a transition in White Dwarf, which was then my main source of modelling information. Can't really remember sand in Military Modelling from the '80s, although I could be wrong.
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For the longest time, battles in the grim darkness of the far future were fought on perfectly even, green and flat grassy plains. With bunkers and strange prickly alien plants seemingly shooting up out of nowhere from the grass.
Bases for all figures were simple affairs; goblin green flock, with goblin green edges. there was no questioning the how or why; it was just accepted as default.
The above probably came about from the fact that 40K originally was a scifi iteration of GW's fantasy setting. And everyone knows that fantasy battles always occur on perfectly maintained grass lawns. I mean; that was just a universal fact, right?
Then, somewhere in the early nineties, basing conventions at GW changed, and instead of Goblin Green, base edges were now Camo Green, and instead of the ubiquous flock, sand and static grass were being used.
A few years later, the green was again changed, but this time into Graveyard Earth, and basing materials became more elaborate and intricate, with slate, cork, tufts etc being introduced.
Following that, actual basing kits were being issued and loads of companies began selling very specific resin bases, with cast on terrain features, bringing us to the present day.
But whatever caused wargamers to start using flock? I think it's the initial influence of the model train scene, where most of the terrain originally came from.
As far as I know, the whole flock thing began somewhere in the early eighties, but I was not yet active in the hobby then, so I can't be sure if this is true or not... ::)
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Sand alone 80's, static grass must have come along in the 90's. I tapped out of GW in 93 and there was no sign of it there then. Couple of years later I saw it being used by Foundry.
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No you could definately buy it in the 80s from Wonderland. Coming from railways and model making it seemed normal to use it but not on the smaller scales. But saying that I don't remember it being called static grass until much later in the 80s. It was just pushed into pva with your thumb.
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Been using static grass/sand since the early 1990s. Prior to that it was painted filler and flock.
For me it was much the same - green painted filler with static grass on top from the beginning in the late 1980s to sand and static grass/tufts from 2000 to present days.
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Around the 1990's, not sure of the original source but pretty sure I picked it up via Foundry on my Darkest Africa figures.
Strange to say I am currently rebasing them and have gone back to filler, a la Aly Morrison's technique.
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My gut feeling says it must have happened around the time where 3rd edition 40k came out. It represented a massive change in the look of 40k that was when the grim dark future really began to go grimdark. And suddenly 40k models did not have goblin green bases anymore.
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Back in the late 70's early 80's my wargames armies were all based on cardboard with green flock. But even back then, Bill Brewer at the Rye Stamp & Hobby Shop in Peckham, was basing his jewel-like painted miniatures on textured, painted bases with static grass and other adornment...
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Makes one wonder about other rather important trends in the Hobby. Who initiated the larger trend to move from oil based paints to matt acrylics? I know I did my first ones, Mithril Miniature, with Humbrol Enamels.
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I've been using static grass since the late 1970s, when "Games Innovation" based in Bradford on Avon pioneered the polystyrene 2 foot base boards covered in static grass applied with a Van der Graaf generator.
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Makes one wonder about other rather important trends in the Hobby. Who initiated the larger trend to move from oil based paints to matt acrylics? I know I did my first ones, Mithril Miniature, with Humbrol Enamels.
True - I'd always used enamels on model kits, but converted to acrylics when I started wargaming after finishing not more than a handful of models with enamels.
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I will start a new thread about Enamels to Acrylics :D
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I based my Heroquest miniatures with sawdust (painted brown). I used to use gravel for my Space Marines and Orks to get that look that they had in White Dwarf. I believe GW actually used Cat litter for their bases.
Then I switched to builders sand painted Goblin Green, drybrushed with Sunburst Yellow (just like real grass! lol) in the early 90s.
I tend to use finer sand now and paint it brown before adding grass.
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I used railway modelling flock in the late 1970s (I still have two original bags). The sand and grass thing I started doing in the late 1990s, I will have copied someone else, most likely from the Mansfield Wargames club. My first full sand and static grass army was SCW, but I did have a lot of older 6mm stuff done with painted sand bases.
Lost interest in fantasy around 1980 so I've no idea what was happening with GW etc.
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I used 'Polyfilla' early on, mixed with all sorts of dirt usually scavenged from Mum's plant pots :-). Moved to sand around 1985 but mainly becuase I lived next to a beach!
Static grass from about 1989 or so I think. Also remember a phase where I used Miliput for a lot of basing in the late 80's which was quite fun but time consuming and often resulted in an over-use of 'interesting' rocks and sometimes mushrooms to liven things up a bit. Used to use an old toothbrush (or my brothers) to texture Miliput and Polyfilla etc..
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Also remember a phase where I used Miliput for a lot of basing in the late 80's which was quite fun but time consuming and often resulted in an over-use of 'interesting' rocks and sometimes mushrooms to liven things up a bit. Used to use an old toothbrush (or my brothers) to texture Miliput and Polyfilla etc..
I went through this phase too. Laboriously applying a doughnut of Milliput, pushing it all into shape, then trying to texture its unyielding surface with a toothbrush and embed small stones in it. Used to take absolutely ages lol
Then I discovered gloop and never looked back. ;)
In fact, I’ve just remembered (it was a long time ago) that my first textured basing was done with Tetrion - a kind of ready mixed Polyfilla. Because that’s what Bill Brewer used...
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Yep - couldn't buy Tetrion easily on the Isle of Wight, but my parents were always 'doing up' the house so an endless supply of Polyfilla. I would frequently emerge from the garden shed covered in the stuff after mixing far too much. :D
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For me it was much the same - green painted filler with static grass on top from the beginning in the late 1980s to sand and static grass/tufts from 2000 to present days.
I found an example of my old and new bases for comparison (the coins are exactly the same): :D
(http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_IEn2IlqGOG0/S-UvjVIRCHI/AAAAAAAADFc/QK9zy7DKJG0/s1600/Miniaturenfotos,+Originale+548.jpg)
(http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-GmgTBKs6m5I/Un6cIwm3wWI/AAAAAAAAGeQ/9WJEzbTJLKs/s1600/Kinderbilder+003.JPG)
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When I first started doing minis as a tween back in the late 80's and early 90's, I preffered to keep the plastic bases pristine black (even painting the slotta tabs black so they'd blend in) as a sort of abstraction that wasn't supposed to be seen. If the plastic was molded in a non-black, I'd paint it black (Testors flat black enamel, usually). Minis with cast-on sculpted metal bases got painted according to the sculpted groundwork, but I disliked these kinds of bases, and thought less of mini companies that used them.
I left the hobby somewhere in the early 90's and didn't make it back till the mid 00's, at which point I had a lot more experience doing diorama bases for display vehicles and large scale figures. My instinct at this point was the opposite of what it had been before: instead of an "invisible" abstraction being the ideal, I wanted to ditch the plastic bases completely, and make wee tiny versions of the sorts of bases you'd find on large display figures instead, complete with "classy" rim like the wood bases used on said display models. The solution I came up with was stone souvenir rings for the rim, filled with epoxy to form a solid base.
For the first version of this, I used epoxy glue as filler and texture goop made of glue or paint and sand for the groundwork. There were a number of things I didn't like about this though, most of which boiled down to different forms of lack of sufficiant control. For the second (current) gen I switched to using epoxy putty for both the filler, and the sculpt the groudwork. I'm pretty happy with this.
The type of putty makes a huge difference. I use Aves for this. It's soft and precise like plastiline, and is very easy and efficiant to work with in this context. Gives me absolute control, and applies as easily as texture goop. I would not advocate Green Stuff for the same job. I've never used Milliput, but from what Keith and Blood say above, it's probably very different from Aves as well.
I dislike the ubiquity of the "tufts and sand" look, because I feel like it accomplishes the exact opposite of what it's ostensibly supposed to. It's supposed to be a universal neutral ground option, but in reality it's an arbitrary specific one that's just as easily out of place as concrete or cobblestone or metal. A true universal option would be a "non-entity" abstraction like black bases, clear bases, or logo bases. Many seem to reject that approach because they really want a base that in theory blends in, but in practice they end up with something that only blends in some of the time, and under any other circumstances they are forced to willfully "not see" in exactly the same way they would with an abstract base. It seems like a doublethink half-measure strategy to me.
For me, characters get ring bases with sculpted groundwork, and identity-less armies or mooks get blank abstract bases.
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I don't know if it was the first, but at least one of the first armies done in this style was the re-done studio undead army for whfb, in WD 211.
Can't find an image of the WD article, but here's a shot of the army conveniently opposing a traditional 'green' army:
(http://www.solegends.com/citcat1998us/c1998usp009-00.jpg)
Still for me the best army ever done by GW - largely nostalgia, of course lol
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I found an example of my old and new bases for comparison (the coins are exactly the same): :D
(http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_IEn2IlqGOG0/S-UvjVIRCHI/AAAAAAAADFc/QK9zy7DKJG0/s1600/Miniaturenfotos,+Originale+548.jpg)
Those Eschers have seriously thick bushes :O
Necromunda was one of the turning points.
Studio models are still on Goblin green bases but featured models were based in different ways - more appropriate to the terrain.
Incidental Necromunda was released with WD 190. That is almost two years before 2011 but the process has to take time.
In 40k turning point was 3rd edition with different colored edges.. The rule of goblin green was put to an end..
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I'd be a fan of clear bases, only I prefer to be able to use the base to alter the height of figures if need be.
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I suspect Australia is/was behind the curve but I too have a sense that static grass as opposed to flock was a late '90s oe early 2000's thing. Similar patterns here. My first armies were painted with Humbrol enamels and based on card orvoccasionally balsa painted green. Trips to model railway shops and photos in Battle and Military Modelling saw me adding sawdust flock.
I'm pretty sure that the first time I saw static grass was the Heki variety and that was around the turn of the century. I've been usung sand and PVA bases combined with flock, followed by static grass and now tufts for around 20 years as I still have minis from then. I also went through a brief polyfilla around the bases phase and gave that up for a waste of time.
The two influences on all this? British wargames magazines and what was available at model railroad shops locally.
First time I can recall acrylics being used to paint armies was by a housemate in the late eighties, who used Gunge -Sangyo, all that was available locally save for rather iffy Tamiya acrylics. I have vivid recall as he was painting Russian cavalry with turnbacks we described at the time as bathroom fitting colours.
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All through my childhood I remember Goblin Green bases and flock but my hobby budget was so limited that I just didn’t want to shell out for it, so always did what he ‘starter paint set’ suggested and mixed white and dark angels green to horrific results lol
For my Warhammer undead I used a cheap grass flock and thought I was being clever by putting patches of brown in (believe it was the Woodlands scenic stuff, I bought it because it was significantly cheaper than GWs in house stuff).
Now I generally ‘go with the flow’ for basing but for the few 40k things I still paint, it’s Bestial brown (or equivalent) then a ‘special mix’ of differing brown flocks, sometimes with patches of green if I’m feeling vibrant. Very, very occasionally I’ll put something additional on, but generally I’m not interested in bases or basing. Massive pet hate for me are those miniatures where the model is 50% base, or a bit of ruined building that miraculously moves with the miniature!
The only bases I’ve made a bit of an effort with are Mantics TWD ones. I use grass tufts and the textured earth stuff.
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Back in the mid 1970s all the guys I played with just painted our bases green and left them at that.
Forward to the 1980s we started flocking our bases.
That was went Geo Hex came out and we wanted the bases to match it.
The last number of years I still use flocking and a sand mixture on my bases.
I do like to use grass tufts to add a little color.
As for acrylics, I started using them around 1980.
I hated the smell of oils so it was a no brainer for me.
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In the 70s bases were just plain green.
Then sometime in the early 80s I recall adding patches of flock.
Then in the mid 80s it was Basetex or pollyfilla dry brushed and with flock.
And then, I guess late 80s, came static grass on acrylic texture gels mixed with paint, which is what I still use.