My Norman bases have an arid appearance so to offset the desert image I added some planting. I opted to use individual plants rather than “scatter” or “flock”. This ties in better with the more arid look. I did do a few bases with some bush flock and they look ok. I used three product types. Bush flock, grass tufts and plants. I also tried a couple of seasonal variants for the grass tufts.
I used gaugemaster NOCH plants of two types – stalky on left and on the right stalks with heads with large tufts at the bottom.
I used Frome Model Centre small green tufts to add variety of height
I did a couple of bases with US based company Woodland Scenics light green bush material just laid on the ground.
More crumb based than discrete stalks I am pleased with the outcome.
Having explained my latest approach to basing I should say that my wargaming choices are very modest. In fact the whole plastic figure thing was aimed at “keep it simple”. And that goes for painting and finishing – simple acrylics mainly block painting and gloss varnish. my figures are intended to be handled and mostly viewed at 3 feet or 1 metre away.
Even my Wars of the Roses 28mm figures have received such treatment although I did some flesh/clothing washes here and there. And they felt a bit questionable – “was the effort worth it?” well thats more about my painting skills/impatience I think and not the technique being worthwhile.
And when it comes to plastic I seem to have moved to the point where a bad Plastic Soldier Review will encourage me to buy – maybe a paint job can rescue a poor figure. The question is can my painting rescue the figure or actually make it worse? Beauty as they say is in the eye of the beholder.
And I have found to my eye that a base I like significantly enhances my figures – when looked at on the table at about 3 feet of course.
So actually close ups on screen are probably not that helpful in some cases. Anyway here goes.
Strelets 1/72 Normans from a mixture of their boxed range at about 12 inches or 300mm
Essentially I based the figures on 80mm x 60mm laser cut MDF from pendraken miniatures, daubed on pva glue, emersed in a tray of budgie grit, shaken and set aside to dry. A day later, inverted to shake off the last loose material, it was out with the paints.
the budgie grit tray – the grain mix works even for 20mm figures
Then base paint. Now this base is the result of several attempts to get the right colour. I could say at this point I spent hours rerunning the La Vuelta vids poring over the helicopter shots for the right ground look but I would of course be fibbing or maybe not………
trials…….
I found I could get some wacky colour outcomes and actually the ones I thought would be too bright I decided would look better for a mediteranean location.
I discovered an old revell acrylic pot of “rust” was the best base colour (need to source an alternative as I don’t know anyone who stocks revell acrylics now given the dominance of vallejo and citadel).
And the ochre and then either ivory or white highlight came from B&Q and Johnstones sample pots. And then some final decoration.
I finished the base off with some greenery taking a cue from La Vuelta again and using bright green foliage. Lots of railway model suppliers provide a range of foliage plants.
And that wraps it up for now. I think the extra steps taken here are worthwhile and enhance the figures. I plan to do all my mediterranean medievals this way. Next problem is getting the table top to match.
The Wargaming Erratic 