A Fox's Guide to Figure Painting (Part 12)

Good eyes and faces give a figurine character, they can cover a multitude of sins on the rest of the piece. Good bases ground the figure into their world.

This post covers the preparation work, along with some of my theory about bases.

First the prep...


Along the top Row...

1. This is a typical 30mm round base, common to many games at the moment (Warmachine and Malifaux are the two I'm most familiar with). These bases are also an exact match for the Sci-fi Reaper Bones squad I'm painting up.

2. I don't particularly like hollow plastic bases, because I like to drill things into them, and the plastic can be a bit flimsy when figures see regular use. For this reason, I mould up my own bases in resin, or buy custom bases that fit the theme I'm working with. The depicted base here uses a dungeon floor design.

3. Once I've moulded up a base, it needs to be primed. As I said earlier, I tend to use a grey primer because it's pretty cheap and readily available, and it lends itself to both light and dark shades pretty easily.

4. The figures I'll be using sit in the middle circle of the base. So I don't need to worry too much about painting this section. The outer ring, I paint in white to go with the theme I'm playing with for this team.
A single coat of white doesn't cover they grey as well as I'd hoped...

5. ...so I add a second coat of white to the outer edge.

(The larger base below the top 5 will be used for the Warforged/Cyborg who has been added to the team.)


I could add the figures straight to these bases, but most of my figures have something special about their bases. Each team/squad has something distinct that they stand on; and if multiple squads make up an army, a common theme spreads across all the different bases.

Sometimes I even add names to the troops, to add a bit of individuality and maybe tell a bit of a story when they hit the battlefield. This is probably a throwback to Mordheim/Necromunda days.


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

A Guide to Geomorphs (Part 7)

Image
A working computer and scanner...that means it is time to get back to work on the geomorph sequence. A lot of the discussion in this set of tutorials has been focused around square geomorphs. They're the easiest for most people to wrap their heads around.  But my preferred form of geomorph is based around the hexagon, these tend to produce more organic and interesting shapes. This is true for natural environments, but it's no less true for urban environments. The example set of geomorphs above as a simple two-phase system. One edge type is plain, the other edge type has a road piercing the centre. There could be dozens of combinations and permutations for each of the two phases around the hexagonal edges, but a quick look at the variety of buildings and road shapes shows that there could literally be hundreds of possible options when drawing these map fragments. But you certainly don't need to create hundreds of designs for the system to be effective. Usin...
Read more

A Guide to Geomorphs (Part 1)

Image
After numerous requests to get back to map tutorials, it's time to start our new series. This time focusing on the concept of geomorphs, modular map fragments that can be mixed and matched. We'll start with a couple of theoretical tutorials before sinking into a few more practical posts. I'm predicting a dozen or so posts in this sequence, but let's see how long it lasts.
Read more