IMPROVE Your Miniature Bases : Easy Warhammer Bases for Beginners 

Hey friend ! Please help me ! For some reason im haveing troubles with my sand / light gravel base. Half of my bases are on "rock solid" and the other have are peeling back. The glue and sand / gravel is comeing off the base :( . What did I do wrong ? Iv used the same PVA glue Emlers*stronger* formula. After the first glueing I waited 24 hrs then put another layer of half water or close to half with glue and dabed it on top of the gravel as Iv done before. I manage to fix the others I used Gorllia Gel glue and re glued the bases back on and put some Gorllia glue around the edges of the base were it would peel off. Many extra steps that before I never had to do. Not sure what went wrong. If this keeps hapening I might just buy Vallejo Base Texture as that drys solid i hear, I just wanted all the bases to look the same so thats why I might just keep glueing the gravel instead.

Thanks! Glad you enjoyed it

You're most welcome, hope it's useful!

A step by step basic guide to gap filling and mould line removal would be great for new people in the hobby.

That is not a bad idea at all!

Really glad you found some use in the video!

Thanks!

Thank you, glad you liked it!

Thanks!

Absolutely up to you how you approach it, but the glue, once dried provides a grippy enough surface to paint the base any colour you want.

You're welcome!

You're welcome!

You are welcome!

Welcome to the hobby! And don't worry, we all had to suck at it before we knew what we were doing, embrace it, learn from any mistakes, and ask as many questions as you need to along the way!

Whilst yes that is true, for a beginner there's too many variables to go wrong, and for a base of this nature you don't really want it smoother.

Glad you liked it! if it was for a mini i would shake the pot, but for a quick base, not so worried.

Thank you! Cheers!

Yeah it's good stuff, not cheap mind, but it will last for a while.

Thanks! Yeah doing part and then finishing it with the model on is a good idea, especially for narrative style bases.

Absolutely! I do enjoy the texture paints. maybe i'll get to covering that with some proper build videos. company called VMS do a really nice mud texture paste too, check out videos by @NightShiftScaleModels he uses it a lot.

How well does the Vallejo texture paint stick on the base ? For some reason by sand and gravel / PVA glue base is peeling back ! :( the base is comeing off ... this never happened before. What have I done wrong ? I let it dry 24 hrs then put the water/glue on top. I had to use Gorllia glue on the edges to stop it from pelling back and comeing off the bass.

Sometimes It can happen through no fault of your own. Sometimes its the glue itself. Maybe it was just a touch too thick. Another alternative is to use superglue to put the sand on, then seal it with pva once it's all dry as normal. This method is fine if you're doing bases without minis on to start with, but can be hard to clean up if you go wrong (edges might need sanding if you spill superglue for example).

I think so as well. Thanks for letting me know. God bless.@@nofixedcourse

Thanks!

Lots of people put the minis on first, it does make for a strong bond, so it can be good for hard-core gaming minis, but you do lose a bit of character and variation because everyone is on the same level.

Thanks. Not totally sure what will be next, lots of stuff has been filmed, so I may do a poll to see what people want or need!

@@nofixedcourse Sounds like a great plan.

Awesome! Many thanks for subscribing

Glad to hear you liked it! Yes ice and snow etc is on the list to make a video on, I'm working on a slightly more advanced basing video at the moment which will be out in a day or two, but then we'll look at specific styles of basing!

Think of it this way, everyone in the hobby is on a path, some people are just further along the path than others. I've been doing this for a very long time, and even I see people far far more advanced than I am. Take what you see as inspiration to move further up the path rather than letting it push you off the path entirely. All easier said than done I know, but hopefully that will help!

You absolutely can still do this with the models on the bases, you just have to be more careful with application, and wipe away excess sand from the feet of the miniatures with a brush before the glue dries.

@@nofixedcourse appreciate the advice!

Pet shops for the chinchilla sand, you can get a decent sized carton for not too much. The slightly bigger sand will mean just mixing in whatever you can find really (pet shops do other grades of sand for different animals, but generally they're expensive for how much you get)

Chinchilla sand from any pet store is good, it's a fine sand so doesn't look out of place. Then you could just grab a pile of dirt from basically anywhere, bake it for a little while to sterilise it then sift through one of those flour sifter thingys (just the cheap plastic ones) to get some variations in size of sand. You want a variety to make it look good but mostly fine sand. A good basing tub is something you can mix up and add to over the years, I've had mine for nearly 10 years, adding bits to it as and when I see them.

Thanks!

Just drill a hole into the foot of the miniature, glue a straight piece of metal like part of a paperclip into the hole, then work out where on the base it should go, and just drill straight through the base. Put glue on the feet and the rod (superglue works best for this method) and put it in place, all done. Just trim off any excess rod when the glue has had time to dry. Hope that helps

Thanks! The music is from StreamBeats all royalty free, wouldn't be able to tell you what particular tracks I used though!

@@nofixedcourse No worries. I can track them down. That first track slaps.

Thanks! I 'think' it's only about 2 or 3 millimeters in length, but I don't have the original packaging anymore. Blowing on the grass just after application helps it to stand up too, as well as getting rid of excess. For longer static grass you could use something that creates static (certain plastics, balloons etc) just to attract the grass after application but before the glue dries fully, that will also work (but I will say that's theoretical, I've never had a need to do that, might be worth investigating)

Thanks! Yeah the subtitles were an experiment, wasn't sure if the editor was going to bake them into the video or not! They'll be optional on the next one.

There's a couple of ways to do it, either with pinning or by covering a section of the base beforehand. Pinning would be to drill a hole in the foot of your model and in the base and connect the two using part of a paperclip or small brass rod. Or you can cover parts of the base where the feet connect before you start putting on sand etc. Either works fine although pinning is a stronger connection.

Not at all! Using a static grass machine just makes the grass stand upright a bit easier, but for a trampled battlefield, pristine grass isn't what we want 😉

Not at all, just be more mindful when wiping the edges of the base as the angles are different and you might hit the surface with a finger or thumb

I've found that pinning is vital when you're using a fully painted and finished base like this. Superglue to keep the pin in the model's foot, then once that's dry I'll trim/sand the cured superglue residue around the pin and determine where to drill the hole in the base and cut the pin to size. I actually use a weaker bond like a tiny amount of PVA or plastic glue on the foot of the mini when placing it, that way you avoid any potential frosting from superglue. Once that weaker bond is set, I'll hang the mini upside down and put a dob of super glue around the exposed pin underneath the base.

@@burp114 I just got some thin cork coasters, I think instead of pinning maybe I can trim down those coasters into small platforms to elevate the minis just a bit? Also because I'm horrible at pinning lol.

@@Markynaz possibly! The only thing to be aware of is that your bond is only as strong as the thing you're bonding to. If your cork has a layer of paint over it, then when you superglue your mini down then you're really only gluing the mini to a thin layer of acrylic that can be easily flaked or peeled away. You could try scoring or sanding where you want to glue and stuff and that might work, just keep in mind that ideally you want to directly bond the mini to the base.

@@burp114 Thanks for the tip. I've not been taking basing seriously at all and I think that's a mistake I should correct, I realize that there's so much you can add to a mini's immersion via good basing.

Minis will superglue to this kind of base very well, but gluing onto Cork might be an issue as @burp114 says, much better to pin to a base in that circumstance. Or grab a handful of bark chips either online or from the local garden centre (or a friends garden!), they'll be slightly stronger than Cork if you pick the right ones, ideally though pinning is still the way forward if you intend to elevate the mini in any way

Yep you can either super glue the model on once it's all painted, or if you dont have access to that, plastic glue the model to the bare base before following the steps. Second route is trickier as you have to work around the model, but it's not too bad.

Sometimes I varnish the whole base including the grass, which can help. But generally as long as its not being moved or touched constantly it should be fine, although you'll always lose a little bit over time anyway it won't be a huge amount.

@@nofixedcourse ok thanks so much! I just finished doing the bases for my skorpekh destroyers, and all of my dnd friends are impressed thanks to your tutorial 😁

And for glazing. The problem I have with the description is that every paint is different and covers differently, its just one of those things you learn by doing.

@@nofixedcourse yeah, I find that it's good for a starting point to learn where to go from there but not something that's perfect as is

Pva will wash off with soap and water very easily, it's a water based glue so won't damage a brush unless you leave it on there for ages. Yeah the subtitles were an experiment, something to be tweaked for the next video

They're part of the video so can't be turned off, just an experiment at the moment.

Because you're simulating a scale, so you need to exaggerate the shadows. When you paint something, you're also painting the effects of the light and the smaller it scales down the smaller and harsher the light scales down with it. Take a face for example. At 1:1 you don't need to shade it at all really because the actual lighting is doing all the work to make it look real, but if your head is 1:24 (so 24 times smaller than real life) then the light source should also be smaller, so we paint in shadows to simulate that. Same applies to any object we scale down.

Haha, if it was for a miniature or a display base it would be different, but just for a gaming base it's fine 🙂

I shall be sure to say it as 'digit of your choosing' next time 🤣 glad you liked the video

Then let's fix that! What rocks are you using and what glue are you using?