SAGA Welsh Army project WIP#6 - Skirmish bases tutorial

SAGA may be a skirmish game, but moving multiple miniatures en masse on the battlefield can be tedious, so I decided to buy some of these excellent 2p Sabot skirmish bases from Warbases.

Here's how I did them:

1. Apply texturing.
I use GOLDEN coarse pumice gel, this allows me to make an uneven surface, but allows me to apply ink directly to it once dry. I use a knife to apply the gel, scraping away any that falls inside the sabots.

2. Whilst the gel is drying, I apply various tufts in random locations. I use tweezers to remove the tufts from the backing and to press directly onto the surface.

3. Once the gel is dry, I apply a brown ink wash 

Again, you should try to avoid inking inside the sabots, as the ink will become the glue for flock. Make sure you get the brown as close to the roots of your tufts as possible.

This is the ink I used, Rowney FW Sepia.

Fully inked and ready for dipping.

4. Whilst the ink is still wet, dip in your dipping tray. Here's mine, made of normal flock, clump flock and  scenic leaves.

I bought the leaves from Atenociti's workshop. Far more than I'll ever need for a reasonable price. My friend bought the dead leaves, so we traded a small amount (in the bag).

So, pop your still-wet base in there

Then give the whole box a few shakes to randomly cover the wet bits

Yes, the base is in there.

 Pull it out, shake it off and voila.

You'll notice there are some brown bits, which is fine. After dipping, run around the edge of the base with your finger to clear unwanted flock. You may want to take any detritus from inside the sabots out with a knife edge too.

This process works on larger bases in the same way, but you may need to dip each edge separately and sprinkle some across the middle.

before

after

So, pretty easy to do. Here's how they all look. Finished units at the back, newer, unfinished to the right, and the empty ones are for the two units I need to make for my basic 6pt army.

The army so far

Expect finished Priodaur unit 2 in WIP #7.

Laserburn project WIP11 - finished buildings, started buildings.

These astoundingly cheap Amera buildings have been a joy to paint.

In this post, I'll run you through how I did them, start to finish:

1: Purchase buildings. These are vac-formed, £1.50 for the small ones, £1.75 for the larger.

2: Raid your bitz boxes for suitable add-ons. Halford's grey primer.

3: Drybrush white all over, then follow that with a yellow ochre wash (Americana yellow ochre, thinned)

4: Brown ink wash. (Vallejo Game Color Smokey ink). Black inks pin washed into the windows and painted into shadowy areas (Chromacryl Black).

5: Highlight/drybrush with a mix of yellow ochre and unbleached titanium (Liquitex Heavy Body unbleached titanium)

6: More brown washing with smokey ink. Further highlighting with unbleached titanium

Paints I used in this process so far

7: Yet more inking

8: And here's the selection of paint markers I used to finish off the detail. I also scoured my decal envelope and added a selection of further details. Most of the decals are from old 1:100 Macross kits, the numerals by each door are from an original land raider.

Here's Building 1. The doorway effect is black and two brown tones. The paving slabs are all done with markers. The water effects is clear granular gel with an ink wash. The aircon (?) unit is from an old USS Grissom miniature

Building 3. I wanted the buildings 'the same but different'. Turning into a bit of a motto for me, that.

This building sports an alternative roof protrusion, and an odd solar panel thing with branding in an alien script. The alien decals are from Macross Zentraedi models.

Building 5 has something industrial going on at the top of their steps. The 'No step' decal is from some aircraft kit.

Building 7 is fairly bog-standard apart from that massive unit strapped on the side. It's an old Klingon d18 that got cannibalised at some point. The rear stairs feature a raised fin for some reason.

A view of the home improvements

Compare the stairs, the hilarious new game show.

Side walls

That's the finished buildings, now for the one I've started, you saw it flat packed in the second photo.

Phase one, make it, and stick more bits on.

Not sure about the green cap. I haven't stuck it yet, and I may mount something else there.

Phase 2: grey undercoat, ready for a similar treatment to the others.

Whilst we're on a Laserburn tip, some of the decals I got to complete my vehicles

So, four things off the painting table, which is looking a bit crowded at the moment.

More soon, lilliputian aficionados.

Dystopian Wars: 1:1200 Antarctic Base WIP 1

I wanted a spectacular table piece to bring Armour to our naval battles in Dystopian Wars, so I decided to make a base for my covenant forces. As I had the basis of some mountains in the form of some packaging, I collected together various snow powders, ice blue paint, and a bag of mod-roc. Here we go...

I started with a big bottle of PVA and the aforementioned packaging, plus a nice 2' x 2' (roughly) piece of blue foam to base it all on. Let gluing commence!

Once the first layer was down, the more mountainous areas.

I picked away at the edges with a scalpel to try to make it look more natural.

Cardboard box full of cat litter holding down the top layer to ensure a firm bond.

Aforementioned cat litter sprinkled on liberally applied PVA (with a bit of water for covering power. My reasoning was twofold - a) the litter would make the flat tops more uneven, and b) as the mod-roc is soaked in water to activate it and it's being applied to cardboard, I thought it might alleviate some sogginess.

I chucked any other uneven bits on there too

So here's the first layer of mod-roc being applied. This is the same stuff as a nurse would use to plaster your arm. Dip in water, and then lay on.

That's the whole thing mod-rocked. Fags for scale.

Spare cat litter used for rockfalls.

The hangar entrance. Gives it a nice 'Captain Nemo' feel, I think.

Main entrance. I smoothed down the area in front as it would be used extensively.

First dark spray - this is spray on stone (yes, it's real, you can buy it in B&Q).

I kept layering it until I was happy

Spray on stone detail. 

I  popped some covenant buildings on for scale. I'm going to be using these and some firestorm armada bits to make a city. 

Some more work with spray blues and greys, white spray highlights, then various snow powders and pigments added for detail. It's looking ok, but it needs a companion board (so that it covers 1/3 of a 6x4 table, a harbour and docks in the middle, and a city built around it. Quite a lot more to do on it, I'll add pictures as it jostles with the umpteen other projects I have going.