How I Base My Figures

I hadn't intended to write a "how I base my figures" post today, but this post just morphed into that. So why not go with it? After all, when it comes to writing a modeling and miniature painting blog, showing people how we do what we do is a large part of the fun of what we blogger do! I know I've learned a lot of new ideas and technique from fellow bloggers out there.

Call me crazy, but I have a strong dislike for slotta-bases and all the other newfangled bases meant more for displaying miniatures than for gaming. I like my figures to hug closer to the game table, where the base blends in more. Plus, I like to use storage boxes lined with sheet magnets, which like metal bases more than plastic.

To accomplish this goal with 28mm figures, I use stainless steel fender washers. All my fender washers come from Fastening Specialists Inc, a local distributor for all one's fastening needs. I pick up at the Ace Hardware store on Orange Ave in South Orlando, down by the hospitals. This is the only store in town where I can buy 100-count boxes of the fenders in many sizes and thicknesses. You can also buy fenders online from places like Zoro Tools, which other gamers have used.

For 28mm figures, I use fenders having a 3/16" inner-diameter and a 1" outer diameter. Larger 28mm figures, like the Victorian who is leaning forward, get a larger fender. Honestly, the inner diameter doesn't matter--just get the inner diameter as small as possible while keeping the price for the fender as cheap as possible.

Basic Prep Work - Saves Time Later
The top of the fender is smooth and slightly rounded along the outer rim. However, the underside and underneath of the outer rim and inner hole can be a bit rough. To solve that, I simply swipe the bottom of each fender across one of my large files a few times, taking care of any burs that might scuff or pull on something.

Next, I wash the fenders in some warm soapy water to get off all the grease and grime. After their quick bath and blow dry, I cover fender's inner opening with a small piece of clear scotch tape. With my Xacto, I cut off any excess tape around the hole. Why tape the hole? This helps prevent a mess in the next step!

Gluing the Figure to the Base
Using some gap-filling super glue, I glue the figure onto the fender washer. Because I taped over the whole, I don't have to worry about glue dripping out of it! I let the whole assembly dry before moving on. I should mention that before I base my figures, I varnish them with Testor's Dullcote.

Priming the Base
Because I intend to paint the metal on the bases, I give the entire base a coating of black gesso just as a safety precaution, which has helped me especially with the Victorians.

Apply the Goop!
A day or so after the gesso has dried (ok, for me some times it's been more like three years after the gesso has dried!) , I apply a nice coating of Elmer's Wood Filler that you can find anywhere. It's cheap and works fine for me. I run it up to the edge of the figure's integral base. You can see this step in many of my figures. You don't have to be too retentive here. Your mistakes make for nice undulations in the ground!


Paint the Base Before Ballasting?
Normally, I use real rock products on my bases--usually model railroad ballast. When I do this, I always paint at least the outer rim of the wood-filler-covered base and the metal part of the fender because once the ballast goes on the base, I am done. If I'm using sand that I will paint over later, then I skip painting the base ahead of time. For my Western figures, I paint the entire base first because the rock material might show through to the base. So this step all depends on what I'm doing.

Gluing the Ballast
I like using Woodland Scenics brown ballast for the 'dirt' on my bases. The ballast comes in fine, medium, and coarse sizes. (The photo to the upper-right is 'medium' texture enlarged.) I use mostly fine but mix in some medium ballast for a rougher texture, depending on what I want to represent. I keep this mix in a small container. I use their 'talus' products for rocks, though you could find small rocks and bits in your yard I'm sure. (Here in Florida, all we have is a sandy loam for soil--not many rocks and bits, I'm afraid.) They also make different colors of ballast, like a light buff color. Check the model railroad shop--they have many colors and sizes of ballast to use.

To glue the ballast to the base, I dilute 1 part white glue to less than 1 part water, just enough to make the glue thin enough. I then paint (aka glop) the glue over the base, wiping any excess off the base edges. (I want to add that in the future I might try adding some slo-dry to the mix to prevent the glue from drying too quickly before the next step.) When the base is covered in glue, I dip the entire base down into the container of ballast, making sure ahead of time to shake up the ballast so all the fine grit doesn't settle to the bottom of the container leaving nothing but large rocks on your base!.

Using a stiff junk brush, I then press the ballast down into the glue while the base is still submerged. This little trick makes sure the grit gets into all the spaces and fixes into the glue pretty well.

Pull the base out of the ballast, knock off any loose rocks back into the container, and set aside to dry.

Move onto the next figure, keeping the assembly line moving. When done with the last figure, set them all aside until the glue has dried 100%, usually this is a few days the way I work. (Do not use a blow dryer to speed the process at this stage, or you will have rocks and grit blowing all over the place. Don't ask me how I know this!)

Next time, I'll finish up this article and show you how I tried a rather novel, unusual approach to painting the bases on the rioting Victorians. Well, I didn't exactly "paint" the bases, instead I.... Hold on, more on that next time! Now I just need to write it....

Painting Nosferatus--Flesh Color Suggestions Needed

I recently began working on West Wind's pack GH-47 Nosferatu 2. Below are some progress shots of my first attempt. To be honest, I am really stumped what color I should paint the flesh. Until now, I've always used the P3 Paint flesh colors, like Kardic Flesh and Midlund Flesh up to the, lightest Ryn Flesh.

Anyone out there with suggestions on what colors to use for painting the flesh on these classic vampires? I have many others to paint. It doesn't seem like Reaper makes any "vampire triads," which seems odd considering how many horror minis they make. Also, I'd appreciate suggestions about what colors to paint the coat and cyberpunk collar. Once I began drybrushing the white, I realized this fellow had more going on with him than I thought when it was bare metal.

1) I drybrushed the flesh white to make it easier to apply the light flesh colors over the black primer.

2. A sloppy shot of the mini somewhere in the process of painting from shadow to highlights. Yeah, I paint flesh sloppy. ;-)

3. The colors I wound up using for the Nosferatu's pallor. The Khaki gives it a bit off an odd tint that doesn't show as well in the photos. I'd rather not do this again, though!

4. I always clean up my messes. :-) The dude has a beard! I didn't realize that when it was bare metal. I fear I might have made the lower lip a bit too red that it's too noticeable?

5. I've applied the top Morrow White highlights to the ear tips, knuckles, ect. Still, lots more work to be done on the hands. I like how it's turning out.

6. Prior to painting the flesh, I never noticed "cyberpunk" look of this fellow, especially the collar. I figured I'd paint the coat a light black but I'm a bit puzzled about the collar. What color should I paint the collar and the coat? Black? Or maybe something else for contrast? Ideas?

7. Gotta love the rotten look of the coat. Well, that's it for now. Suggestions always appreciated.

Improving My Scouring Pad 15mm Hedges

Four years ago, I posted an article Making 15mm Hedges, where I explained how I made hedges using strips of green-painted scouring pads. The hedges were functional but always a bit lacking, looking like cut up scouring pads painted green.
 

To the left is a photo from that article showing the hedges with one of my Peter Pig figures. (By the way, I've also touched up these figures, improving the shading and highlighting and other details I missed years ago.)  I used them for a few 15mm games, but they really have sat in a drawer with the rest of my 15mm, unloved. Well, with my new commitment to 15mm gaming, a couple weeks ago I decided that enough was enough. I needed to do something about the scrawny scouring pad hedges. The "improvements" I made took only a couple hours spread over a couple afternoon, and most of that time was spent pondering more than doing. So here are the improved hedges.

First, I mixed up some Scenic Express Matte Medium at a 4:1 ratio according to the instructions. I also added a touch of Dawn dish water detergent to help the matte medium flow better. I then began brushing this onto one of the hedges. The pad really spreads the matte medium. I found out the hard way that it's best to work on the hedges vertically, so the mixture flows down through the hedge instead running out the sides. You really want to keep the medium in the hedge and not the base's ground cover!

Once the hedge was coated in the medium, I liberally dumped Woodland Scenics Fine Green Grass Turf over the hedges. I did this over an old plastic dish to catch the excess. Using the end of an old brush, I then patted down the turf into the hedge. When done, I placed the hedge onto a paper plate and moved onto the next one.

Since I wanted to move the project faster, I got out the hair dryer to dry the glue.Who'd think that a hair dryer set to High could blow around little bits of scouring pad glued to little wooded sticks? Not me! I should have had a video of that! After cleaning up the counter and retrieving the wayward sticks of scenery, I decided to let nature dry the sticks overnight.

The next day the hedges were dry. I decided to use some of the Woodland Scenics Flowers in 4 Colors I bought years ago but never opened. You get a pack of mustard yellow, bright white, bright red, and burnt orange. First thing I did, though, was dump each little bag into a small plastic container, making storage and use so much easier. I picked up the plastic containers at the local craft store for a couple dollars. There are enough flowers in the pack to last a few lifetimes, so buy enough containers so you can give your buddies some flowers to brighten their day. (Wow, does that sound creepy out of context!)

I have two containers for each color. Wow. That's a lot of flower power!

I applied a dab of diluted Matte Medium where I wanted the flowers, grabbed a pinch with a tweezers, and dropped them in place. They look like wild flowers. A better method I tried was to take a little piece of foliage turf, the kind we use to make trees, glue that to the base. Then dab the top of that clump with the matte medium and drop a light sprinkle of flowers on top. This looks more like real flowers than sprinkling the flowers on the grass. I think you can see this in the photos? Oh yeah, the flower turf has a slight static charge so watch out when you grab a pinch with your tweezers!

When I "planted" all the flowers I wanted, I then went about sealing the fine turf I had sprinkled on the hedges the day before. If you don't seal it with matte medium, the turf will come off very easily. I diluted the medium a bit more, maybe about a 6:1 ratio. I then brushed the medium onto the hedges. Normally, I would have sprayed it on using a spritz bottle but I need a new spritzer. So brushing worked fine. Turf is ground sponge, so it soaks up the matte medium like a....well...sponge.

Brushing on the diluted matte medium.

The next day, I knocked off any excess turf from the hedges and was done. Voilla! No more scouring pad hedges. Next time, I'll paint the hedge to look more like branches and then apply the turf. That should make them look even better, especially near the bottom or places where the hedge got destroyed.

So there you go. Easy hedges! More 15mm goodness coming as I find the time this week.

If you look closely, you'll see I added more details and highlighting to my Germans.

Some flowers, a bit of turf equals better hedges.

Another West Wind Thug Joins the Gang

Another figure from West Wind's London Thugs pack I finished the other day. This is the seventh figure from the pack that I've finished, leaving just one more to go. I have five more from the London Mob pack to finish. These have been fun to paint. Now I just need to give them something to be rioting about! Maybe some werewolves or Nosferatu or Pumpkin Heads or Mad Bombers. Who knows what I'll pull out of my West Wind box next!

BTW next week I'll be picking up the rules In Her Majesty's Name and see how they look. Amazon says they will have them on May 21st for $13, my kind of price for wargames rules! Cool Stuff across the street should have them for $12. I'm sure well see a flood of posts all around the blogs and forums about the rules, and Victorian gaming. I'm not sure they'll be what I'm looking for, but at that price for a print book I don't mind. It's interesting how we're suddenly seeing an explosion in VSF in 15mm and 28mm. I'm also surprised to see renewed interest in Western rules, which seem to have been quite dead the past five or so years.

Crazy Old White-Haired Victorian Dude & Stuff

Last week, my wife and son went on a mini-vacation to St. Louis, so I took a little Me Time to do some painting. My back was still bothering me, but I had to do something. Actually, the back is still bothering me today, more so after bending over to take a bunch of photos for the blog this morning. It's at week five now. Sigh. My wife and son are tired of me being cranky! It's getting better but it will probably take a few more weeks. And now I've lost my train of thought. Oh, right...back on track.

I also worked a bit on the bases of my 28mm Soviets, sealing the ground cover with diluted white glue. I feared that the glue would turn the brown ballast a bit darker, which it did. Drats.

Plus, I really improved the look of the 15mm hedges I made years ago. They don't look like Brillo pads anymore! It was really easy to do. I'll have photos and tips of that later on.Yes, lots of  new 15mm stuff in the works here. :-)

Oh yeah, welcome to all the new folks following the blog. I always appreciate it. Feel free to leave comments.

Anyway, here is the third fellow I've painted from the London Mob pack. I thought I'd try white hair for the first time. I think it came out a bit too white, so next time I'll do it differently. Lesson learned. (I'm rationalizing that he lost his Sanity roll while facing one of Cthulhu's minions, turning his hair total white. LoL.) Any tips on painting an old man's white hair would be appreciated!

Since I have a bunch of these guys done now, I'll start working on the bases. I'm thinking of using the fine ballast but painting the entire base gray. I've seen this on the Pulp Figures site and in WSS magazine for "urban" figures and like the look. Simple and easy. I just have to figure out what color gray. You guys think it would work?

I used Burnt Sienna for the coat. I really liked the color.

New Idea for Activations in Skirmish Games, Doctor Who Healed Me, Obvious Rogue Trader Revalations, and 50!?!

Well, after lying on my back every evening for three weeks with a heat pad, I'm finally feeling better. Of course, that didn't matter to our hot water heater, which died last Sunday and wasn't replaced until this past Friday. Several days of cold showers in the morning did not help my back nor my attitude! That aside, I did get watch the first 4.5 seasons of the new Doctor Who show. I had never seen the new series, so watching it was educational and overall enjoyable. Plus it eased my pain. But maybe more about The Doctor another day. Oh yeah, did I  mention that today I turned 50?

While resting and popping pain meds, I also "tried" reading some of my old rules that had been sitting unread on my shelves for ages. A big moment came when I finally got to read my copy of the original Rogue Trader. That was an eye-opener because I have many of the 40K books from 1st edition through 4th edition or so, but I've never actually played the game. Reading Rogue Trader from an unbiased (neither a hater nor a fanboy) point of view, I kept wondering if I were reading a set of Ancients or Napoleonic rules instead of one-man-per-base skirmish rules. Honestly, I felt that I could pop out my Space Marine figure and pop in a battalion of fusileers. The push-back and pursuit rules are right out of such an historical game, and sound much like Warmaster's fall-back and pursuit rules would. Anyway, Rogue Trader goodness and oddness is another topic for another day as well, if people would be interested.

This evening, I thought I'd post an idea I had for activating individual models in a skirmish game. It could be used in anything from a Western to a sci-fi setting. I think it could handle single figure activation, which was my goal, or unit activation.

These are just the bare-bones of the activation system. I took the dice cup idea from Bolt Action, though I had been thinking of the same thing ever since I played my first of World at War: Blood & Bridges years ago. Drawing on my love of collectable card games and their use of event and action cards, I'd also like to add that to the final version of the game. Plus, I'd like d10s for all skill and combat tests, but d6s for activation. But I'm getting ahead of myself.

So let's see what you guys think. Oh yeah, did I mention that today I turned 50?

PRE-GAME STUFF
Each player will probably have up to a dozen or so models. Each player needs enough six-sided dice to start the first turn of the game. All players must use the same size die, but each player will have a different color. These are the "action dice." (Instead of dice, you could use colored glass beads, small wooden blocks, poker chips, or any other type of token.)

You also need one opaque cup large enough to hold all the action dice.

TURN SEQUENCE:

1. New Turn
At the beginning of a new turn, each player places into the cup a number of his action dice equal to half his remaining models able to perform at least one action at the start of the turn. Round up any fractions.

(For example, Player A has nine models still in the game, so he places five of his action dice into the cup. He then passes the cup to Player B, who places four of his own action dice into the cup since he has eight models in play.)

2. New Round
At the beginning of each new round, draw a die from the cup and give it to the appropriate player, who becomes the active player for the round.

3. Action Points
The active player rolls his six-sided die to see how many Action Points (AP) he gets to spend for the round. See the table below.

Die Roll   AP
1, 2, 3,   1
4, 5       2
6          3

[Design Note: Here is an area where an action card could give a Star model one extra AP up a 3AP maximum. Or add a +1 to the die roll but a single Star model must use all the APs. You get the idea.]

4. Model Activation
The active player selects one of his models without a Spent token and activates it. [Design Note: Spent tokens mark models that have already acted during the turn or who have lost a turn for whatever reason.] He then gives the model one or more actions, spending the appropriate number of AP for each action performed. Some sample actions and their AP costs are listed below.

[Nearly all actions will cost 1AP because I really hate most all action point systems. Only complex, time consuming, or game-balance-issue actions will cost more. Some scenario actions, like shutting down the nuclear rocket launch, might take a character several AP totaled up over a few turns because that is the scenario's goal. Of course, saving and then playing just the right action card at just the right moment might help stop the countdown at the obligatory 0:01 seconds remaining.]

Action  AP
Move 6" 1
Shoot   1
Brawl   1
Reload  1
Unjam   2
Open a new shrink-wrapped DVD case 27AP

(Ok, I'm being silly with the DVD. But I had to struggle doing this earlier today. If I had to do it while being shot at, I doubt I could!)

Assuming the player has the AP to spend, a model can perform the same action multiple times a round and can perform its actions in any order. Resolve each action separately. The player can wait until an action is fully resolved before giving the model another action, activating a new model, or ending the round.

Once the active player finishes giving the model actions, he places a Spent token next to the model. A model cannot be activated again until the Spent token is removed, which typically occurs at the end of the turn.

If the active player still has AP remaining, he can select another of his models without a Spent token and give it one or more actions, spending AP for each action. He can continue activating models this way until he runs out of AP or decides to end the round. Just remember that action points cannot be saved from round to round--use them now or lose them.

(Example: Player A, the active player, has three action points to spend this round. He decides to activate Texas Pete, announcing that he will spend 1AP to move the model 6" toward the nearby stone wall. After Pete arrives at the wall without any problems, Player A announces that Pete will spend 1 AP to fire his revolver at Stinky Bill. Unfortunately, the shot misses. Now Player A has a decision to make. He still has 1AP to spend, but really needs to use it on another model that needs to move into protective cover. But Texas Pete's shot missed Stinky Bill, who hasn't done anything yet this turn and might be able to shoot back, if his player is lucky enough to become the active player next round. Then again, Player A might get lucky and become the active player instead. Or Player A could toss it all to the wind, discard the remaining 1AP, and end his round early. Perhaps he could spend that action card that costs 1AP. Decisions, decisions.)

5. Repeat Steps 2-4
Repeat Steps 2-4 until all the dice have been drawn from the cup or there are no more models to activate.

6. Clean Up
This is a placeholder step for when any end of turn rituals and functions occur--perhaps morale tests, victory conditions, drawing and discarding action cards, removing Spent markers, and so on.

7. End of Turn
Return to Step 1 and begin a new turn.

So, Humans, Tell Me What You Think
Does it bring anything to a game or just add more complexity without any real payoff? I want to avoid IGOUGO or being able to activate only one figure per round. I want some fog of war, but I also want some planning, but not too much--this isn't chess. I want to be able to have the Earps stroll down the street together, but die rolls might force me to activate other models before I can roll 3AP, which is part of the game. Hmmm.

Take care. Oh yeah, did I mention I turned 50 today? :-)