Bases for all terrain. Neutral bases

[Ethelred the Almost Ready]

I am stuck with my current basing for most of my figures, but with me considering a new project I thought I might try different basing.  My miniatures will be in a variety of locations - in medieval city streets, villages, fields, in buildings and on ships.

I don't think I have the time, patience or skill to use clear bases (I presume integral bases need to be cut off then miniatures pinned and glued to the base).

I was thinking of having some minimal texture on the base and painting it with a neutral colour and wash (perhaps a grey/brown) with a hint of black shadow under the character.
Has anyone done somethings similar?  If so, pictures would be appreciated.

[Bison]

I started to base figures on plain brown texture bases. Here are a couple of examples. It loses some effect without using static grass, sand, or flocking. But once on the table and playing it doesn't really bother me at all.

[ithoriel]

For my 20mm sci-fi miniatures I've gone with shades of grey  on the grounds that they may be on a spaceship, on a space station, on an asteroid, on a moon, on a planet (with it's myriad coloured terrains), on tarmac streets .... etc, etc. Grey is neutral and doesn't look horribly out of place (to me) wherever the action takes place.
As ever, YMMV!

[carlos marighela]

A single base colour can be quite effective, sans tufts, grass etc and brown is one of the more versatile 'natural' colours.  The trick is to ensure that there are some highlights to break it up. Dry brushing is your friend. Otherwise it can look if you have just plonked the figure down into a turd.

[ced1106]

Are we talking just for gaming?

Glue on some playground sand. Paint with watery dark brown craft paint. Maybe drybrush a lighter brown. Stick a dot of glue and use tweezers to stick some static grass (dead for bad guys, bright green for heroes). Turn the model upside-down and tap excess grass.

Terrain by Archon,
"Squealers" miniatures by RBJ Games
Skellies are Reaper Bones.

[eilif]

I agree that a simple neutral ballast painted brown or grey is probably best.  I would differ from some folks though and say leave off the static grass if you really want a neutral base.

[zemjw]

I've been doing neutral bases for a while.

I cover the bases with sand, basecoat with Vallejo flat earth, shade with their sepia wash, drybrush highlight with tan earth.

It's not visually stunning, but it does the job

[Citizen Sade]

Further to what’s already been said, I think it helps to add some variation in tones and the odd bit of visual interest to jazz up relatively plain bases.

By way of example, I wanted my IQ28 Squat biker smuggler gang to not look too out of place in various 40K settings. I ended up going for a sort of urban wasteland look.



The variation in tones comes from random splodges of quite a few different washes & inks. A little visual interest is added by the spent brass.

I took a similar approach with some Oldhammer fantasy rabble. They’re on earthy bases with lots of splodges and a bit of cut straw/reeds. The sort of thing that doesn’t look too out of place on the streets, in the fields, in caves or in peasant hovels or rough inns.

[Onebigriver]

With some exceptions such as my modern zombies and my reddish planet sci fi, I paint a sand base with a cheap burnt umber acrylic, then dry brush with VGC graveyard earth then VMC dark sand. I do stick a bit of static grass on though, just to make the base a bit more interesting.

Wish I did it years ago TBH - many of my fantasy figures are on "dungeon" bases, but now I'm using them for Dragon Rampant they look a bit odd traipsing around the countryside on their own little paths, and I still have genestealers from my 1st ed. Space Hulk on green bases 

[FifteensAway]

The 'neutral base', one of the 'Holy Grails' of wargaming.

I think the real trick is to not be bothered by basing versus terrain mismatches.  Just a game after all. 

However, I do like the idea of a neutral brown base with some dry brushing and a bit of tuft, gravel (rocks) to add a modicum of interest.  Plain brown, especially dark brown, does get a bit of that 'turd' look as mentioned - minor icky.

I settled for most of my basing being Woodland Scenics T50 fine turf blend (mostly 15 mm in my collection) applied over a wet reddish brown paint and when dry an almost yellow green as a highlight, the underlying acrylic paint as adhesive gets a bit absorbed into the turf.  Matches to a lot of my custom made terrain, mat, hills, woods, etc., very nicely.  And, so far, has worked on my various Cigar Box Battle Mats.  A few things I do on sand (clean play ground sand) bases, Pirates mostly, with added tufts and dry brushing.  Will be using similar for my French Foreign Legion (current project) but instead of clear glue as used for pirates, will be using a 'sand' color paint as the adhesive for the sand (impacts the color of the sand a bit).  And then the usual dry-brushing, etc.

Whatever basing material, after the inverted tapping to remove excess material - angled several ways for the sneaky bits hiding in the folds of the figures - I always spray with a matte sealer to minimize loss of material over time.  And, oh yeah, I always prime my bases  before painting to make all of this easier.  I use sheet metal bases and the site of bare metal peaking through base texturing really spoils the effect for me - why I prime both sides of the bases, too.

[FramFramson]

I sometimes use basing to adjust figure height so this option isn't available to me, but the best possible solution for universal bases is simply transparent plastic.

[Idle Doodler]

I've found clear bases to be pretty painless, so they might be worth reconsidering.

I generally clip off any integral base when I'm clearing up flash, using a very old and worn pair of sprue clippers to get rid of most of it and then usually one or two slices at most per leg with an old knife to get rid of the bits under the feet.

It takes a bit longer to work on each mini, but far less time than I waste texturing a base, waiting for it to dry and then painting it.

I've never bothered with pinning. Just a dab of canopy glue (to avoid any clouding on the clear plastic) to each foot and planted onto the base.



I initially tried clear acrylic bases but they turned out to be quite brittle; the figure could come off quite easily with a few jolts. Then I turned to a 1-inch hole punch and plastic binding covers as a cheaper and more durable option. (And it's much cheaper - a few pence per A4 sheet, divided by however many inch-wide circles you can fit onto an A4.)

To paint them, I usually glue them to a scrap bit of binding cover which can be roughly cut to a necessary shape/size and blue tacked to a paint holder of some sort. Removing that clear plastic after the paint job gives an idea of how good the bond is as the plastic itself usually tears before it loses its grip on the mini's feet. So I just trim around the foot and stick it down, assuming the leftover plastic probably sticks even better to itself.

Even without that, the bases work with both metal and plastic minis.



 I'm not very particular about how even the cut is, just an eye-balled chop to make sure the stance is roughly level. It requires surprisingly little surface area. This chap is essentially on his tip toes, and he's never come off the base:

[Orctrader]

If it helps, my default basing method is:

Sand\grit mixed either with PVA glue, Polyfilla or both.  Sometimes mixed with craft paint, often not.

Paint with a very light sand colour.  (Craft, Miniature Paints Sand - I had a lot of this - or what I have to hand.)

Wash with a brown craft paint.

Dry brush with an off-white, or even lighter sand than I used in step one.

I find this covers most genres because I'm not aiming for realism, rather a lighter base will help show off the figure.

[Patrice]

I use brownish or greyish texture base, covered with a gray or brown paint mixed with wood glue, and flocking material ...depending on context. For real neutral, as characters who mainly stay in buildings or streets, some grayish sand or nothing.

For others, the main terrain they will visit. For medieval, grass and brown patches; for Manchuria and Siberia white snow with some earth or grass patches; for desert a reddish sand.

But I find that if the base is not brightly coloured it blends almost in everything. My pirates have light yellow sand on their bases: we say that wherever they go (aboard ship, in houses, etc.) they do not care to wipe their feet they bring sand everywhere with them. 

[Codsticker]

Despite the work, I second clear bases.