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Author Topic: Any Investigator basing ideas, tips?  (Read 1754 times)

Offline Riquez

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Any Investigator basing ideas, tips?
« on: April 03, 2019, 04:33:16 PM »
I am just getting my Cthulhu collection started with some investigators & I'd like to base them up on these slotta type bases. (I'll cover the slot)

I am struggling to think of a good method & design. I want something simple/plain/unfussy, but appropriate to the theme, eg. carpet, floorboards, tiles, tarmac.

I dont want to cut them off & pin them, its too much hassle for me & I think I will mess it up, so im trying to go for something clean & simple.

I saw matakishi's videos on basing compound of glue, paint & sand - this seems like a good method to get them mounted on a level plain without too much difficulty.

But then I am a bit stuck on how to decorate them with something suitable - ok, tarmac would be easy, perhaps for the police or journalist. But as I get to other figures in the range, I think indoor locations would be better ~ & I can't think of how to do that & work around the feet.

Do you have any suggestions or examples?

I have never done basing before really, so I am at a bit of a loss.
« Last Edit: April 03, 2019, 04:36:32 PM by Riquez »

Offline Oldben1

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Re: Any Investigator basing ideas, tips?
« Reply #1 on: April 03, 2019, 07:01:54 PM »
How about hardwood?
I base all my characters on a grey tarmac style.  You could easily buy hardwood plastic sheets or texturize some putty.

Offline Dan55

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Re: Any Investigator basing ideas, tips?
« Reply #2 on: April 08, 2019, 04:15:16 PM »
Should it not depend on what type of terrain you intend to play on most?  Such as urban, indoors, nature ...

Offline Riquez

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Re: Any Investigator basing ideas, tips?
« Reply #3 on: April 09, 2019, 02:26:37 AM »
Good point Dan, but I don't play on terrain.
Mainly these figures are just for the enjoyment of owning/painting. Although I do play CoC & Arkham Horror, so I may use them in a game.

It looks like I cant really achieve what I wanted without cutting/pinning them & I don't feel ready to attempt that.

I did one on tarmac & the result is mediocre. The basing compound settles so that a mound is evident where the original base sits. Its not terrible, so i might end up doing this just to get them on standard bases.
I also ordered some green stuff, so ill see if I can manage something with that too.

Offline zemjw

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Re: Any Investigator basing ideas, tips?
« Reply #4 on: April 09, 2019, 08:49:38 AM »
I am basing some Northstar Cultists at the moment and wanted them on slotta bases. I've had the same issues you're facing just now and have never been entirely happy with the results, so this time I went hi-tech.

I traced round a cultist base on graph paper, scanned it and then created a 3d slotta base with a suitable hole in the middle to drop the base into. I then 3d printed the result. I had to put some masking tape around the gap (I went close enough with the printout, but it didn't need to be perfect), then just added my usual pva and sand mix. It has worked well and they look like they are on slotta bases.

I'm not sure if you have the software and hardware for that approach, but perhaps one of the slotta bases with a dip in it would help (they tend to be slightly larger than 25mm, but that shouldn't matter).

Another approach I have considered in the past is to cut a plasticard collar that fits over a plastic base (a plain flat one, as otherwise the base would be too tall). The collar would be the height of the figure base, and would let you keep things at a consistent height across the base. The problem I had was that I could never figure out how to cleanly drill the centre of the collar, or even get a decent outside cut with my circle cutter.

I'm not sure how thick your bases are, but maybe a sandwich of plain plastic bases, with the centre drilled out of the top one could work.

I'm don't know how that would go with things like floorboards, as it may look like the feet are embedded in the floor, but it would at least give you a flat base to work on.

I uploaded some pictures of my approach

The slotta with the hole for the cultist base


Cultist in base


Cultist with simple earth base. Note - there's still some tidying to be done, these are fresh off the workbench, but I'm sure you get the idea


edited to add pictures
« Last Edit: April 11, 2019, 07:47:38 AM by zemjw »

Offline Riquez

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Re: Any Investigator basing ideas, tips?
« Reply #5 on: April 10, 2019, 12:49:01 AM »
Thanks Zemjw, those sound like some creative ideas.
Unfortunately I don't have a 3D printer.. yet.

The pictures you uploaded didnt work, I just see "no entry" symbols. Perhaps you could try again because I would love to see them.

Offline zemjw

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Re: Any Investigator basing ideas, tips?
« Reply #6 on: April 10, 2019, 08:55:45 AM »
That's odd. They worked in preview mode, not sure where I went wrong  ???

I'll try and fix that this evening

Offline zemjw

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Re: Any Investigator basing ideas, tips?
« Reply #7 on: April 10, 2019, 07:35:01 PM »
hopefully fixed the problem.

Turns out when you embed an image from google photos you have to append ?.jpg to the link. Weird, and I don't remember having to do that in the past...

Offline Riquez

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Re: Any Investigator basing ideas, tips?
« Reply #8 on: April 11, 2019, 05:49:22 AM »
its still blocked for me, when i open the images in a new tab it takes me to google but its blocked - i guess you have privacy controls to make them public on google?

Offline zemjw

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Re: Any Investigator basing ideas, tips?
« Reply #9 on: April 11, 2019, 07:51:31 AM »
okay, fingers crossed this time.

I really miss picassa, it was so much easier to share photos. No idea what happened this time, although I may have linked to them outside of the shared album I use for posting pics  o_o


Offline Riquez

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Re: Any Investigator basing ideas, tips?
« Reply #10 on: April 13, 2019, 02:28:26 AM »
I received some green stuff from ebay (18 inches, $10 USD) & this seems like the obvious solution. It works great to smooth in the base transition seamlessly.

Easy to make a simple surface & with a bit of practice i guess tiles wood etc