trying to learn some cool ways to paint cave bases for moria goblins dragons bats spiders and such as well as for dwarves any help would be greatly appreciated pictures would be the best as well as names of the paint that is used and so on. THANKS

The most common basing method is slather pva glue (elmer's glue) on to the mi is base, dip it in sand, once it dries carefully shake off the excess, prime, paint the base grey then dry brush up with various shades of light grey moving to white.

For dwarves, the above is good. Add a rock or slate piece here and there or maybe some cobblestone. For Goblins, you can add some bones and debris. (Pick up some skeletons from ebob and chop them up).

Spiders and bats, some cobwebs made from cotton wool would look nice. And as for the dragon, more bones and treasure would look nice.

Hope this helps give some ideas,

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PVA and sand: certainly the most classic, and widely used method. I use it for 90% of my bases, although I tend to spice them up with tufts, little stones, pieces of bark, fallen leaves etc- depending on the army.

One of the easiest ways to make this style of basing more interesting, and suitable for Moria, is to superglue a few little stones on to each base after the sand (or during- but after gives you a better bond) but before painting.

I paint all my evil bases Games Workshop Rinox Hide, and then dry brush with Mournfang Brown, 50% Mournfang Brown with 50% Bleached Bone (think it's called Ushabti Bone nowadays?) then pure Bleached Bone.

I paint all my good bases Olive Drab (er... games workshop Loren Forest looks about right), highlight with Vallejo Heavy Kakhi (Games workshop Deathworld Forest), 50% Kakhi with 50% pale grey (GW Dawnstone) then pure pale grey/dawnstone. Then sometimes, if I think it needs a little more, I'll add some pure white to the grey and dry brush very selectively in certain areas with the lighter colour.

On top of those basic shades I add a lot of extra and different details, like autumn leaves, frost, slate, grass tufts etc. But the basic colours are always the same. That way I can mix and match any of my evil and good armies with each other, and they still have basing continuity of a sort.

As far as the specific colours are concerned, the thing to remember really, is that you want increasingly lighter shades of the same, or a similar colour. Adding white to any colour, in increasing proportions, will get this same effect, but I prefer to use colours other than white as it can look a little harsh and unrealistic. You can go with a mars like tan/red for desert bases, while highlighting up to a pale orange/peach colour. Or for Moria perhaps you'd want to go with a pure black or very dark grey, and highlight with a blue/grey colour initially, then up to a slate colour, and finally with off white. For elven bases perhaps you want a really green lush colour, and would use a base of emerald green, highlighting with a more lime green up to yellow. There are lots of things you can do to create different effects. The important thing to remember is simply to dry brush in increasingly lighter steps of the same or similar type of colour, with less and less paint on the brush.

Hope that's of some help.

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Here's my method:

I slather PVA glue onto the base, and dip the miniature in my pre-made mixture of fine sand and fine gravel, which adds a good array of rocky terrain-like texture. Then allow to dry before washing with PVA glue, I find this wash is essential as it coats the gravel/sand to secure it fully, but without loosing the texture, and it also prevents loose sand clogging your brushes. This wash will take approximately 8 hours or so to dry, so I leave mine overnight.

After this, dry brush however you want it, I find greys work better for cave bases, and they're neutral so don't distract the eye from your miniature, which is ultimately something you should be after.

If you want to heighten your miniatures and add more detail you might consider adding cork rocks to your base. There's plenty of YouTube tutorials for this so I won't bother explaining it here. Sheets of cork, or even rolls, can be bought at Hobby stores for about £3. I managed to buy a metre long roll of 3mm thick cork from HobbyCraft for £3.99 and after two years I've only used about 10cm squared of the stuff, it lasts forever. These cork rocks can then be painted in the same way as your base, or slightly different if you want a minor contrast, maybe wash them with a brown wash to just slightly alter their final hue.

Hope this helps.

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Wise Old Elf

I use Golden coarse and extra coarse pumice gel material as my basing. In the US you can find it at the craft store Michael's (use a coupon!) in the artist supply aisle. I usually let it dry overnight and it is white when dry.

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"Even darkness must pass. A new day will come. And when the sun shines it will shine out the clearer."

Im glad you mentioned that Mapper. I've been considering trying that stuff out

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If you're willing to put in a fair bit more time and effort, have a go at the techniques in the basing section here:

http://massivevoodoo.blogspot.co.uk/200 ... rview.html

Perhaps more suited to display pieces.

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For my moria goblins and dwarves I use really fine crushed up bits of slate and slate dust, looks a lot nicer than sand for the cave dwellers

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I use Liquetex resin sand which is similar to Golden pumice. One tip. It's acryllic, so mix whatever color paint you want your base to look like before spreading it on the base. Saves painting it later and if it chips the color will still show through, rather than white. This is my recipe:

For ground in a diorama, I use this formula. LIQUETEX RESIN SAND

1 Scoop out half the jar and place it into an empty jar of about the same size. Save the empty jars and reuse them.

2 Use a cheap 2 oz acryllic paint (Folkart, Ceramcoat, etc) and pour 1 oz into each jar. I use Chocolate Brown. Mix up both jars until there is no more white color left in the paste. This avoids 2 steps. One, you don't have to paint the ground once it's applied. And two, cracks or breakage will show brown, not whte so there are no repairs to do.

3 Mix a shot glass full of sand into each jar. This will tighten up the mixture and make it grainy. Any sand will do.

4 Mix a shot glass full of Woodlands Scenic medium ballast (color doesn't matter) into each jar. These are your rocks. They will give you something to drybrush.

5 Drop a dollop of white glue into the mixture. About a shot glass full into each jar. This will keep things sticky.

6 Let stand overnight WITHOUT the jar lid on. At this point it's goo. Letting it air dry will bring it back to paste.

7 Mix it up again and cover the jars tightly. You now have 2 full jars of ground. Add a bit of water if it's too dried out

OK, this is your basic ground cover. It will stick to almost anything and everything sticks to it. Use a cheap set of of artist's trowels to spread the mix where ever you wish to place it. Spring for the metal set, the plastic one will break. Michaels sells these for a couple of bucks, use a coupon for added savings. If your mixture dries out, you can bring it back to life with plain tap water. Keep the lid on tight and it will last.

I've been using this receipe for over 20 years and it's a product of much trial and error. I use it on all my scratchbuilt pieces and all of my figures that require basing. It takes drybrushing amazingly well and any sort of ground foam or static grass will cling to it. Give it a shot.