Cork Rocks and Ooze

For my first article I will be showing you how I make my post apocalyptic slime bases.Examples

Ingredients:I use...40mm Privateer Press base25mm GW baseWine Cork*Green Stuff/MilliputSand/Model railroad ballastBitz and Rubble (some screen to simulate chain link fence, plastic tube for pipe, a barrel, a gun, photo etch barb wire, etc.)*A note on cork; wine cork is different than cork board. Cork board is ground up and glued back together to make a sheet, much like particle board. Wine cork is solid cork. They both are handy, and both have their uses in basing minis. I use the wine cork because it isn't ground as fine and I can get large chunks and control them better. That isn't to say that you can't experiment with board and get a good effect.Step 1:Fill in the slot in the 40mm base with green stuff. I always use GS here, it goes on a lot smoother than Milliput. Then break your 25mm base in half and glue it on the edge of the 40mm base.Step 2Your next step is to tear up your wine cork into little chunks. The goal is to make random and cool looking jagged bits. You want to avoid using any of the smooth edges. You don't want to use too many thin slivers or pointy bits. Just try to make it look matural and interesting. Use superglue. Build up a wall that rises just above the broken base. This is going to be a bit deeper on this base. I will be using a Foundry mini and I'll need to build up some putty around the figure's feet to disguise the integrated base. This is a bit more difficult than a mini with a slotta tab, as you can just clip the slotta off and pin the mini onto a finished base.Step 3Next you need to build up some putty to hide that nasty gap in the back. I would recommend using milliput for this, especially if you have to work around an integrated base like this. I make sure to build the back up so it is relatively steep, otherwise your mini might not have enough room to stand. Because I am using a mini with an integrated base I have to occasionally press him into the putty, not only to check his positioning, but also to make a footprint so I can get his exact placement later on. Then I move to the front, just laying a thin layer of putty out of the minis footprint. After I get the front basically done I glue the mini on and smooth the putty up to his base. Step 4Next you want to glue on your basing material. I use two grades of model railroad ballast, but sand or whatever works. I use watered down PVA glue. The ratio of water to glue is up to you, I use somewhere around 1/1 or 2w/1g. This is so the watery glue soaks through the sand and sticks it on. You don't want it flaking off while painting. Again, this is more difficult with the model I'm using. I'll have to let the glue dry, then chip off bits of sand that may have stuck to his feet or bottom of his coat.Step 5The next step is to simply prime your mini. Usually I would use black spray primer, but since the mini is already primed I'm just going to paint it on. I usually use flat black Testors enamel when I brush prime, but due to it's dry time and smell I'm going to use acrylic today.Step 6This is where the actual painting begins. First we are just going to lay down our base coats. I use Camo Green for the ooze and Scortched Brown for the rocks and gravel. You can also see I have mixed some Scorpy Green in with my camo and made some swirls in the ooze.Step 7After your base coats we drybrush the ground. I first use GW's Graveyard Earth, then Desert Yellow. You could even follow up with mixing some bleached bone into the Desert Yellow. You should paint your items on the ground in this stage too, though this isn't apparent in the pic.You can use whatever methods and colors you usually use for basing here. It can look good and add variation to drybrush the large cork "rocks" gray while painting the dirt brown.Step 8This is where we make the ooze more "oozy". I use the same watery PVA I used to glue the sand and I paint over the goo. Then I dip my brush in some Scorpy Green and swirl it through the glue. I repeat with some Camo Green. As the glue dries these swirls will coalesce into a kind of pond-scum effect. Repeat this process several times untill satisfied.I'm sure you could use several thick coats of gloss varnish or resin water effects in this step, though I haven't tried it.
Finished!Congrats! You are done. I hope you enjoyed this tutorial and found it useful. Comments and criticism welcome. Let me know what you think!!