Maestro
10-21-2006, 02:21 PM
++ How to make good-looking tile bases, in an easy way ++
This tutorial was done for a Warhammer 40k forum where somebody asked me how I did a tile base on a model of mine. Even though the last part is rather GW-ish, the first bit might still be interesting..
Step 1:
The materials used for this are basically a sharp knife and (for this tutorial) a 40mm round base.
Step 2:
Use the knife to carve thin cravices in the base. To do this, I made 2 cuts per joint in a 'v' shape, instead of just cutting straight down. Watch out for your fingers here and make sure you don't go through the base.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v320/John_Thompson/Tutorials/Tile%20Bases/TileBase1-2.jpg
Step 3:
Dammage. Use the knife again to make some damage to the tiles. I made a single small 'impact-thingy' in the form of a star and a few cracks.
Step 4:
Some small spots of sand were glued to the base with basic PVA (white) glue. This, I usually place around the carved damage, to make some small debris of some sort.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v320/John_Thompson/Tutorials/Tile%20Bases/TileBase3-4.jpg
Step 5:
Undercoat. When painting this along with the model, step 1-4 should be done before glueing the model to the base. I used black for ease, if you use a white undercoat on your models, I highliy recommend painting the bases seperately.
Step 6:
The base was given a quick, sloppy coat of Scorched Brown. I thinned it down a bit and painted 2 layers on, to get a good covering and still being able to get paint in the sand better. It doesn't matter if theres any paint in the cravices.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v320/John_Thompson/Tutorials/Tile%20Bases/TileBase5-6.jpg
Step 7:
A heavy drybrush with Bestial Brown. Again, this doesn't need to be especially neat, just make sure you whipe your brush well enough not to leave too many brush-marks.
Step 8:
A medium drybrush of 1:1 Bestial Brown and Bleached Bone. This drybrush schould be a neat drybrush, as this brings out most of the detailing on the base.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v320/John_Thompson/Tutorials/Tile%20Bases/TileBase7-8.jpg
Step 9:
A very light drybrush with pure Bleached Bone. This is done mostely around the edges of the base, around the edges of the tiles and around battle damage to bring these parts out more.
Step 10:
Use a mix of 1-1-3 of Scorched Brown - Black Ink - water and a small (detail or fine detail) brush to paint the cravices. This gives them more depth and keeping the paint thin means you can easily paint them as the paint follows the recess automatically.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v320/John_Thompson/Tutorials/Tile%20Bases/TileBase9-10.jpg
At this point you only need to paint the edge of the base in a colour of your choice (I like tham black with this as it draws more attention to the tiles) and then you have your basic tiled base!
In the next few steps though, I'll explain how you can make it a bit more interesting by adding a cool Imperial Eagle freehand.
++ Detailing the base ++
Step 1:
To paint the Eagle, I first drew the basic shape for it in Fortress Grey. The basic shape is a triangle, ofcourse.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v320/John_Thompson/Tutorials/Tile%20Bases/TB11.jpg
Step 2:
The heads are painted on. Reason I started with these? Now you know the lokation, they're easier to paint as you've got more space and you can draw the rest of the eagle around them. The heads are basically just to elongated dots, connected by a thin line at the bottem to represent a neck.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v320/John_Thompson/Tutorials/Tile%20Bases/TB12.jpg
Step 3:
Here, I've painted the body and upper part of the wings. To do this, I started by painting the wing parts starting from the head (a little bit away from the head ofcourse) and drew a line to the wing tip. This way you're sure you won't paint over the heads! From there I painted a small arc under the heads, connecting the wings, and drew a line down to the tail, widening at the end.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v320/John_Thompson/Tutorials/Tile%20Bases/TB13.jpg
Step 4:
The feathers are painted in. These are just lines with some space in between them and not touching any lines drawn in the previous steps.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v320/John_Thompson/Tutorials/Tile%20Bases/TB14.jpg
Step 5:
Some moss/colouring was painted on using a 1:1 mix of Catachan Green and water. After painting some patches with this mix (usually in 2 thin coats) I painted some spots with pure Catachan Green around the center of the patches for some extra colour.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v320/John_Thompson/Tutorials/Tile%20Bases/TB15.jpg
After this the base is fine for using under your marines, but more details can be added like bolter shells, or more debris or skulls.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v320/John_Thompson/Space%20Marines/PICT0001copy.jpg
I hope this tutorial has helped you or at least given you some ideas!
Cheers and thanks for reading.
John Thompson
This tutorial was done for a Warhammer 40k forum where somebody asked me how I did a tile base on a model of mine. Even though the last part is rather GW-ish, the first bit might still be interesting..
Step 1:
The materials used for this are basically a sharp knife and (for this tutorial) a 40mm round base.
Step 2:
Use the knife to carve thin cravices in the base. To do this, I made 2 cuts per joint in a 'v' shape, instead of just cutting straight down. Watch out for your fingers here and make sure you don't go through the base.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v320/John_Thompson/Tutorials/Tile%20Bases/TileBase1-2.jpg
Step 3:
Dammage. Use the knife again to make some damage to the tiles. I made a single small 'impact-thingy' in the form of a star and a few cracks.
Step 4:
Some small spots of sand were glued to the base with basic PVA (white) glue. This, I usually place around the carved damage, to make some small debris of some sort.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v320/John_Thompson/Tutorials/Tile%20Bases/TileBase3-4.jpg
Step 5:
Undercoat. When painting this along with the model, step 1-4 should be done before glueing the model to the base. I used black for ease, if you use a white undercoat on your models, I highliy recommend painting the bases seperately.
Step 6:
The base was given a quick, sloppy coat of Scorched Brown. I thinned it down a bit and painted 2 layers on, to get a good covering and still being able to get paint in the sand better. It doesn't matter if theres any paint in the cravices.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v320/John_Thompson/Tutorials/Tile%20Bases/TileBase5-6.jpg
Step 7:
A heavy drybrush with Bestial Brown. Again, this doesn't need to be especially neat, just make sure you whipe your brush well enough not to leave too many brush-marks.
Step 8:
A medium drybrush of 1:1 Bestial Brown and Bleached Bone. This drybrush schould be a neat drybrush, as this brings out most of the detailing on the base.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v320/John_Thompson/Tutorials/Tile%20Bases/TileBase7-8.jpg
Step 9:
A very light drybrush with pure Bleached Bone. This is done mostely around the edges of the base, around the edges of the tiles and around battle damage to bring these parts out more.
Step 10:
Use a mix of 1-1-3 of Scorched Brown - Black Ink - water and a small (detail or fine detail) brush to paint the cravices. This gives them more depth and keeping the paint thin means you can easily paint them as the paint follows the recess automatically.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v320/John_Thompson/Tutorials/Tile%20Bases/TileBase9-10.jpg
At this point you only need to paint the edge of the base in a colour of your choice (I like tham black with this as it draws more attention to the tiles) and then you have your basic tiled base!
In the next few steps though, I'll explain how you can make it a bit more interesting by adding a cool Imperial Eagle freehand.
++ Detailing the base ++
Step 1:
To paint the Eagle, I first drew the basic shape for it in Fortress Grey. The basic shape is a triangle, ofcourse.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v320/John_Thompson/Tutorials/Tile%20Bases/TB11.jpg
Step 2:
The heads are painted on. Reason I started with these? Now you know the lokation, they're easier to paint as you've got more space and you can draw the rest of the eagle around them. The heads are basically just to elongated dots, connected by a thin line at the bottem to represent a neck.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v320/John_Thompson/Tutorials/Tile%20Bases/TB12.jpg
Step 3:
Here, I've painted the body and upper part of the wings. To do this, I started by painting the wing parts starting from the head (a little bit away from the head ofcourse) and drew a line to the wing tip. This way you're sure you won't paint over the heads! From there I painted a small arc under the heads, connecting the wings, and drew a line down to the tail, widening at the end.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v320/John_Thompson/Tutorials/Tile%20Bases/TB13.jpg
Step 4:
The feathers are painted in. These are just lines with some space in between them and not touching any lines drawn in the previous steps.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v320/John_Thompson/Tutorials/Tile%20Bases/TB14.jpg
Step 5:
Some moss/colouring was painted on using a 1:1 mix of Catachan Green and water. After painting some patches with this mix (usually in 2 thin coats) I painted some spots with pure Catachan Green around the center of the patches for some extra colour.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v320/John_Thompson/Tutorials/Tile%20Bases/TB15.jpg
After this the base is fine for using under your marines, but more details can be added like bolter shells, or more debris or skulls.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v320/John_Thompson/Space%20Marines/PICT0001copy.jpg
I hope this tutorial has helped you or at least given you some ideas!
Cheers and thanks for reading.
John Thompson