A Tutorial... Red Desert Bases on the Cheap...

Okay so, something new and a bit different today, a tutorial on home made bases, these are cheap, quick and easy. I think they look pretty good when done, so I thought I would share my technique with you all

what you need:

Bases (that's a given)
Slate
Sand
Polyfilla


The polyfilla is the trick to this technique, you don't really need to worry about the quality of the stuff, generally, we're not looking for a nice smooth finish, and that can be achieved with a bit of water... I got a tube from Homebase, of their own brand, for under three quid...

so first things first, spread a layer of polyfilla onto the top of the base. Now, depending on what look you are going for, you can either smooth this down, or leave it un-natural and uneven. after a short period (5 to 10 minutes, you can then take a piece of wire, or a sculpting tool and draw some cracks into the polyfilla

This is what you should be looking for, try to make the lines look as natural as possible, don't have them all going in one direction, have them change angels and converge with one another, have them fade out in the middle of the base...

This 60mm base shows a combination of polyfilla, slate and sand, I glued the slate in place, then added the Polyfilla, then the sand, this gives a little variation, almost like the cracked uneven ground, blends into the normal desert once more...

As we're doing our armies on a Martian setting (or similar, I'm sure Mars isn't the only red planet in the universe) the next step was to paint the bases with Khorne red, I didn't actually bother to undercoat these first, the only step I would advise is to use a second layer of PVA glue on top of the sand to seal it place...

the next step was to drybrush the bases using Wazzadakka Red, a medium drybrush should suffice so that the bases pick up a decent amount of the second colour without becoming too heavy handed with it... 

once this has dried using a liberal amount of red wash (I used Baal Wash because I had a pot left over) coat the entire base, the wash shall flow into the cracks, shading them and the unnatural leveling of the base, giving a nice varied appearance for very little effort, as the photos show below

The natural grooves in the Slate will lend themselves to the drybrush, and will be brought out further by the wash, there is no real work involved making these look decent... The last step is to give a final light drybrush of Wazzadakka Red over the top of the base just to give a further easy highlight

The possibilities with this type of basing are not just limited to the red planet, this would work for any desert based army, or using the polyfilla (without the cracks) to build up a mud base, add some thin balsa wood and some barbed wire and you would have a decent, simple trench base... that give me an idea... brb...