Basing the British Airborne Red Devils

Since the Warlord Games bases had arrived I figured I would get them based up and ready for the table. This did interrupt the work I have been doing on the second section which includes the 3" mortar crew. I felt like I needed to get section 1 and the MG out of the way so off to the side went the 2nd Section. I haven't done this style of basing for quite a while so I figured it would be worth recording so that somewhere there is a record of how I did this.

I do consider bases to be part of the scenery for the tabletop. Since the British paratroopers really only fought in Europe I decided I would go with a base with a bit more undergrowth than I have been using for my Calamity bases and its definitely a far cry from my North African bases. Much like my style of painting I like to layer textures on to a the mini's base. It adds a lot of character and depth and while the bases are obviously related none of them will be exactly alike.

The first thing I did was to gather up my basing materials (which tend to scatter) and see what I had to use.

There is more but I just grabbed what I thought might be useful for these bases. I didn't really use much of what is in the picture though.

I like to add rocks whenever possible. However, model railroad ballast is to uniform so I prefer something like this from the Arizona Rock & Mineral Company (Great folks by the way, I highly recommend them).

This is a good choice too, and maybe easier to get a hold of for most people.

This is something new that I wanted to try. Dead Fall Forest Debris from Scenic Express. (I was looking for this stuff specifically because it was mentioned on another forum) I was fortunate that Caboose Hobbies is now carrying a small selection of Scenic Express stuff now so I didn't have to mail order it. I did have to drive down and browse through the largest train store in the world (and acknowledged by the Guiness Book of Records). Oh the sacrifices we make for our hobby. Straight up this stuff is not going to work for the bases though, most of  it is just to big.

It was mentioned on another forum that it needs to be sifted to be useful. I decided to give it a try and see if there was enough smaller material to work with. There certainly is!

This is the pile of larger material. I put this back in the jar and put the smaller stuff into a ziplock. I filled the ziplock with the smaller material so well worth the effort.

Ground cover from the Driftwood Scenery Company which doesn't seem to be around anymore. I may well start hording this supply.

I pulled out this package to use as the first layer on the bases. Sheet Moss is very cool stuff

I couldn't find any of my basing goop, so I made up some more. This is Golden Extra Course Pumice Gel. I mixed in some additional rocks and added water to thin it down a bit.

Basing Goop #2 is made from Liquitex Modeling paste, and more rocks and water. This is the mixture I went with for 1st Section's bases.

 After gathering up the potential materials I started in on the actual basing process.

Super glued the minis to the Warlord bases. I used the 25mm round and the 25mm x 50mm ovals.

The MG and two of the crew went on a 40mm round while the third crewman remains on his own 25mm roun.d. Because the fit was going to be tight I glued the MG down first, applied a layer of basing goop and then glued on the second crewman

Basing goop completed. I might be able to use this straight up for a snow base too.

Vallejo Umber Brown for the base coat

A little highlighting. I do this in case some of the base doesn't get covered by ground cover. The highlighting step was probably unnecessary .

I'm missing a picture. The first step is to apply matte medium to the whole base and cover it with the sheet moss from Driftwood. After that layer has dried I sprinkle on the smaller debris material that I sifted out from the Forest Dead Fall Debris so its laying on top of the sheet moss. I thin add drops of matte medium (thinned with water) and soak the base pretty thoroughly with the stuff. The whitish areas on the bases is the drying matte medium. It dries clear. I should have added a bit of flow improver to help it sink in, but this worked just fine.

Here the matte medium has dried (I let it set over night) and I have neatened up the edges with a file.

The ground cover is all in place so its time to pull out the brushes for the last step.

I paint all the edges with Vallejo German Camouflage Black Brown (822/150). I will also use Reaper Master Series Blackened Brown (9137) for this step. The two colors are almost identical. 

The prone Bren Gun team really shows how effective my version of the Denison smock is. I could see misplacing these guys on the table.

So the 1st Section of the platoon along with a supporting Machine Gun is now ready to do battle. I'm back to being charged up to get the 2nd Section finished now too.

Calamity gets and Undercoat - Weathering Old West Buildings

I started this last weekend and discovered I didn't have all the materials and none of the local craft stores had what I needed. Fortunately Dick Blick ships quickly and I had the rest of my materials yesterday. I started with the Gamecraft Miniatures building last weekend to decide which fabric dye would work the best. I tried three brands of black; Rix, Scribbles and Dye-na-flow fabric paint. The Gamecraft building was primed with my airbrush using an acrylic primer ( I don't remember the brand). The fabric dye just didn't flow evenly across the surface and left a lot of streaks. Of the fabric dyes Scribbles and Dye-na-flow, are the best choices as they are actually black. The Rix comes out decidedly purple so I won't be using that one anymore. I picked up the fabric dyes at Joannes. The first pictures are of the Gamecraft building and I'm just unhappy with it, the back was done with the Rix dye and you can see how purple it is in the pictures.

Friday the inks arrived that I needed to pull off the effect. I purchased two different brands to try; Liquitex and Trans Mix Media Brilliant Ink (by Chartpak) from Dick Blick. I also primed the next two buildings with Kilz primer. I thought that the enamel surface would let everything flow a bit easier. I grabbed two Sarissa Small Heroic buildings for the next attempt.

I grabbed some big bottle gaps to serve as large palettes. The Scribbles dye comes out very thick so it needs to be cut down with water to create a wash. I had a cap each of Liquitex Burnt Sienna and Raw Sienna ready to go as well. The process works much better if everything is wet (well except the primer, that should be dry).

Pick a side to work on liberally apply the black fabric dye wash, as it dries this will give that nice silvery gray color for exposed wood. Your brush strokes should be in the same direction as the wood planks. While this is still wet apply a bit of raw sienna in places that are more protected, under the roof eves, under the windows any place where there is more protection. Use the burnt sienna (The Liquitex Burnt Sienna is really strong and you should probably cut it a bit with water) in the most protected locations. Feather the inks together with the same brush, then feather some black up into the area. You are going to create different tones in the wood this way. After the initial feathering I added a bit of raw sienna into the lower portions where I already had black. This gives a random look to the wood. For a newer building use more raw sienna, just keep in mind that exposed wood tends to weather very quickly especially in areas that see extremes in weather like Colorado.

Let everything dry a bit, you may need to go back with the black if it dries lighter than you would like. This is definitely a season to taste technique. This goes quickly, I did all three buildings inside of 30 minutes. This "undercoat" will serve two purposes. For the sides and backs of the buildings it will be the finished look. Paint was quite expensive in the Old West and typically only the front of a building would get painted, especially because of the boom and bust nature of small towns in the Old West. On the front of my buildings this will become the undercoat. When I reach the color stage I'll borrow a couple of other railroad techniques to create a peeling paint effect to expose this undercoat.

At this stage I'm pretty happy with the results so I'll move on to the rest of Calamity. Pictures will probably help explain what I was doing better than my writing so on to the snapshots!

1st attempts with the Fabric Dye.

Started with the Rix dye which ended up quite purple. Then went over it with the Scribbles brand. Now the whole back is really to dark. I might just paint this up as a rare building painted on all 4 sides. Or re-prime and try again.

Sarissa Precision Small Heroic Plus building. Primed with Kilz

Liquitex, Raw Sienna on the left, Burnt Sienna on the right.

Scribble, Black Fabric Dye

Scribble straight from the bottle, thicker than Vallejo! Add water to create a wash.

Apply black over the whole side. A bit of raw sienna higher up the side and under the window. Burnt Sienna on the very top board. You can see the different tones this creates.

Front of the Sarissa Small Heroic buildings, finished.

Back of the Sarissa Small Herioc buildings, finished.

Trying to save the Gamecraft Miniatures building. I think I can call this a sucess.

The back is still way to dark. Although it looks better in person. Maybe I'll just paint all four sides.

A small Calamity street shot

A small Calamity alley shot