This is going to be a simple tutorial on how to do cheap textured bases with highlights for $6. With this much material, you should be able to base up to 100 x 40mm miniatures easily.
I’m going to assume most of you already know how to mix paint and pastes, so I’m going to gloss over those for brevity. You’ll need the following (pictured above):
- Daiso Cement
- Daiso Brown Acrylic Paint
- Daiso White/Ivory Acrylic Paint
Now let’s move on to the equipment. If you don’t have the following tools, you should be able to buy them cheaply at Daiso:
- Paintbrushes
- Mixing Container for Cement (Preferably rubber)
- Sieve
- Container for debris
- Paint Palette
The debris container is optional, but I would recommend it if you need small stones for future base work.
Step 1.
You’ll want to sieve the concrete into your mixing container or into a dustbin. The sieve is there to collect the larger pebbles and stones mixed into the concrete straight out of the bag. You can elect to store them for later in the optional container or alternatively discard them.
If you’re doing a much larger base, you can opt to skip out on this method as imperfections and blocky textures are easier to work around on a larger canvas.
Step 2.
Once you apply the concrete, you’ll get this wet ugly looking thing. Feel free to make any indentations or pock marks as you see fit at this point and leave it to dry overnight.
You can opt to add any of the discarded stones if you wish to, but I’ve found this gets in the way of painting the base.
Step 3.
Your base should end up looking like this. It’s crusty and grey and with a number of textured imperfections sticking out.
It’s a blank canvas for you to experiment with but for this moment, we’re gonna go with a dry, packed earth look using some brown paint.
Step 4.
After basecoating it brown, you’ll end up with this strange chocolate cookie looking thing.
Don’t worry, this is where drybrushing for highlights comes in, so prepare either your white or ivory paint and have at it.
Step 5.
And this is the result of drybrushing. It still looks like a cookie, but now it’s a highlighted cookie with some texture to help make your model pop a little.
Step 6.
Remember those stones we sieved out earlier? You can glue a few of them on along with some modelling grass if you want a more interesting looking base.
And that’s how you get a simple textured base for $6. Happy hobbying!
