I've posted testimonials to the virtues of homemade basing paste (AKA 'gloop') so many times on LAF over the last 15 years, that I must sound like an incredibly irritating stuck record. Sorry about that.
But once more unto the breach, dear friends...
I cannot believe people are still willing to shell out (proportionately) ridiculous sums of money on little branded bottles of mixed paint, PVA and aggregate - which is all they are - when you can make your own for a tiny fraction of the price, and in about five minutes flat.
I'd rather buy a commercial product and save my hobby time for painting
Each to their own, and hey, if you have the money but not the time, fair enough... Hopefully you get plenty of painting done in the five minutes it would take to mix your own 'product'
For those who can spare five minutes on the other hand...
Get a jar or airtight tub or box.
Put some sand into it.
Add some paint.
Add a splosh of PVA.
Mix.
Use.
Not too difficult? Although you can, of course, play endlessly with the relative proportions of the ingredients to achieve exactly the consistency, colour and texture you want.
But it's broadly (by volume) around 60% sand : 30% paint : 10% PVA.
In a little more detail:
Paint. Paint provides the colour and the liquid content. Everyone already owns paint. Any old water-based household emulsion or craft acrylic paint will do. You don't need much of it, and you don't need to buy new - although you can of course choose to do so, in exactly your own colour, if you want a ready-coloured basing paste that you don't need to overpaint once dry.
Sand or other aggregate. To provide bulk and texture. I use soft 'builders' sand, but if you want a lot more gritty texture, you can use 'sharp' sand, or indeed any aggregate you like really, from talcum powder (for a ultra-smooth finish) through to assorted grades of railway grit or 'Talus' and crushed pumice. Or you can add combinations of these. But sand is really all you need - and most people have access to cheap or free sand. You only need a cupful. Go to the beach. Raid a play-pit or golf bunker. Alternatively (in the UK anyway), you can buy a 25kg poly bag of sand from B&Q etc for as little as two pounds. Yes, that's TWO POUNDS
That's enough to last you many, many lifetimes of figure basing and terrain making. Essentially it costs NOTHING.
PVA. You need some plastic adhesive in there to act as a binder, a hardener and a preservative. Again, you don't need much of it. And again you've probably already got a bottle or tub of PVA sitting around in the house. But once again, even if you have to buy it, it's absurdly cheap. My local craft shop sells 1L bottles of 'craft PVA' for about one pound.
In short, you probably already own the three things you need to make your own basing paste. And if you don't, then you can buy all of them in enough quantity to last you many, many years, for way less than the cost of a couple of small pots of branded 'basing compounds'.
To recap:
- You can vary the texture to your needs / preference, adding more granularity (or less, by bulking up with a finer aggregate)
- You can stiffen or liquify the paste to your own preference for ease of application, simply by adding a bit more aggregate or a bit more paint / PVA
- On a typical miniatures base, it dries in about an hour, and sets rock hard thanks to the plasticising properties of the PVA
- You can choose exactly your own colour - and if you want to vary the colour you can do so by adding different coloured paints.
- You can also overpaint it straightaway if preferred.
- You can embed larger 'rocks', twigs, etc into the paste whilst wet, and it will grip these for eternity once dry.
- Provided it is kept in an airtight container it will keep indefinitely, and will not deteriorate or 'go off'.
- You can make it in whatever quantities you want. I keep a small tub of it for figure basing, and a bucket-sized sealed tub for terrain projects.
- It costs - proportionate to the quantities you will ever need or use - a few pence / cents to make, and takes about five minutes. Get your ingredients, sling them together, stir with a stick or whatever, adjust to your desired colour / consistency. Job done. It's ready to use.
Why not give it a try?