Basing top heavy miniatures?

[Hammers]

During the Black Friday sale past, I purchased a set of great eagles from GameZone Miniatures which I've had my eyes om for quite a while. As it often is with this company, the miniatures are excellently dynamic. They are however difficult to pin and glue (they are metal after all) and basing these while leaving that sense of swiftness and movement is a challenge.







Do any of you have experience from basing complicated miniatures and have a few tips to share?

[Hammers]

I should add that I have made some succesful experiments with adding sheet lead to the bases which works fine with those models which are not much off centre above the base, but what makes s few of these eagles interesting to look at is that just the fact that they are off balance!

[Bearwoodman]

That eagle would look fantastic hung from the ceiling!

[has.been]

I've made a few bases for helicopters, I went for large base (old CDs) &
hot glued some hefty garden rocks onto it. That works.

Option two, which I used for a ground attack Ski-Fi flyer, is to make a
tree with the main part being coat hanger wire. Again hot glue it to your
base & have the wire disappear into the craft (or eagle). Then build up the tree.
 It involves a bit more  modeling, but looks effective as the flyer (Sci-Fi/eagle)
seems to be just touching the foliage as it is flying past.

[robh]

Lovely model. I guess you want it for gaming so have to limit the dimensions of the base.

Your best bet is probably to use multiple support rods without any base. A simple wire tripod from below the point of balance or different length rods under the support points of an "off balance" pose.

[Hammers]

THis second Eagle is balanced quite well, it's left wing sweeping the ground just below the point of gravity. This means it stands quite robustly even on a 35mm base. That's quite a clever bit of sculpting on the artists part, that is.

[dadlamassu]

I gave up basing these sort of creatures (and aircraft).  For many years I made wire tripods for them. 

But now I use inverted cheap plastic beer mugs or plastic wine glasses. These have a very small "footprint" and can be positioned easily and you can see figures directly below.

Large and small clear plastic glasses and a box in one of our huge battles

[tin shed gamer]

Hammers,
Here's a few of the ways I fudge my way through basing top heavy stuff.
The Airship has a hidden support.Which goes through the entire model.It changes direction at the base of the model and goes up through the grey 'funnel' ( the second grey funnel is to draw your eye away from the line of the stand  through the whole model. The centre of gravity is moved away from the angle of the support. To just infront of it. And the weight is pushing down and backwards.So it doesn't fall over. The rock is actually a vacform and hollow So there's it no counter weight to the weight of the model. It relies on the angle of the stand.
The Tri motor isn't a particularly heavy build. Because its a scratch build the centre of gravity is way off where it would be on a kit. It does show the same style of base as the Airship just without the 'rock'  covering up the support. It's literally just a CD covered in sand.
The Camel is an old resin sculpt so its heavier than a plastic kit. It's base is actually 80% balsa wood just stuck its centre of gravity over the centre of the base.
Personally I prefer to do bases with the support well back twards an edge and keep the centre of gravity over the centre of the base. (But I chickened out with the Camel.)
 The Griffin is an odd one as The both the front legs and throat are a resculpt in clay. Repositioning the back legs also threw the centre of gravity it to an unflattering position . So its not quite the position I envisioned. But the point with this one is . Don't use a plastic support on heavy old figures .As they sink down the support over time. The bottom tallon on the lower foot was 5mm above the grass tuft when I based it.That was only 18 months ago.
The balrog is a mystery it's perfectly capable of going all day on a table without out falling over. Then you look at wrong in the cupboard and it falls over.
Again I suspect it's an age related issue. Of Softer older alloys verses weight ,time,and gravity.
My main musing would be if it's an older softer alloy. I'd reccomend not getting carried away with a more artistic pose as it stands a good chance of objecting to its pose over time.
Mark.
That said I do like the pose of the second eagle. It takes a good sense of the weight of a casting to get a sculpt to balance like that once its cast. Or some serious pinning and gluing. I suppose you soon figured out which .

[Hammers]

Stellar! Very useful tips. I shall mull this over and see how it applies.