A Basing Question.

[Cesar]

Hello.
My question may seem a little trivial, but it\'s just not to me, or my army.

I have here an army of dwarves, I am going to flock, and yes they are those pesky GW dwarfs form the previous edition. No need to rush things ehh? lol

I\'m about base the proud dwarves, but I’ve stumbled into a dilemma! I\'ve come to recognize that there are two sections to a base, the frontal view section, which elevated the mini, at an angle, and the top half, which contain terrain details.
I have decided to keep my core unit bases concurrent with the old GW standard. A completely green base, with green flock on the top half.
Now here comes my issue. I am going to paint m special unit bases, very soon, and following the special units, are my heroes and lords. I\'m not sure how i want to do my special units. The question had recently presented itself, and it\'s a fork! Now i am to deal with it. Maybe you will help me. Here is what I know.

Basing is very important to any army, and represents many things; style, ability, creativity, climate, and purpose, so find myself giving attention to my overall basing.

I am going to use light brown GW modeling gravel, bleached bone lightly highlighted (maybe with a light mixed in), for the top part of the special units bases,.

My lords and heroes will have more creative tops to their bases.

I will use my dwarves in table top battle.

My army is a dwarf army. There are trickles of browns and bleached bone present all through out my army.
Mostly likely defending there home, the dwarves are very purposeful, pragmatic, and skillful.


What i don’t know.
1.
I wonder wether or not i paint the bases of my special units brown, or green, before I add the gravel.
I think the brown concept will add a certain coherence within the units. I think the brown bases will swing well with the units color scheme, and work together great to identify the special units, as special units. Which will give the units a very smooth, smart feel.
The green may, or may not look as great in a different way; breaking the bottom half of the base from the top, (which may be good or bad.. this might show off the fact that all that is on top is plain gravell?) flowing with the core units very well, adding coherence to the army, and giving the army a very table top gaming feel.


I worry about painting the bases green, and after flocking, finding cracks of green between the gravel, if the glue wanes in resilience, or green is going to be tricky.
My army will not be shoddy.
If the green works as well, with the appeal, as the brown, then why switch to brown?

2. What about my lords? If I go with brown concept, will i use this with my lords as well? If I swing to the brown, I certainly cannot swing back to green for my lords as I\'m not a teeter totter. Maybe I should leave those bases black, or perhaps another shade of brown? I will be using static grass and other scenery wonders on my characters.

I am sorry if you are bothered by my post, but this is important because of the work I put into painting my dwarves, especially my special units, and the cost of this whole army. Not to mention a certain ethic, especially when working on my dwarves. The scenery on the bases will not be amazing, just bare flock.

ps. the pics above is not one of mine. It is borrowed from the bottom half of a picture featured in the \"converting your warbands general\" section of then GW site.

Thanks for reading.

 

[freakinacage]

i put any gravel and anything that needs to be painted on before painting. if oyu paint and then glue the gravel on, it may come off (the glue bond being stronger than the paint).

as regards to the colour, keep the sides black. it\'s easier. that way the ground level looks as if it starts on the top of the base. it looks neater if you ask me.

if you still want a colour, i\'d go with the brown. just because green sides look weird to me

 

[automaton]

I think that, whatever colour you choose for the sides of the bases, you should use the same colour for all the models in your army. It is better to always use the same colour, because it will give the army a greater sense of cohesion and tie the colour scheme together.

I also think that green is not a good idea, especially because you are using the light brownish gravel on top. If you want to use a colour, dark brown would be better, to match the rubble - green would only be possible if the top of the base was grass. Or just make it black.

 

[QuietiManes]

I\'ll put another vote in for black. I like black because it looks distinct. As in, it is not supposed to blend into the ground, etc. Because no matter what colour your bases are, they wont match most of the boards you play on. Black, just seems to fade away, my mind just sort of ignores it, the base is there for measuring, and that\'s it. If there\'s a brown or green base I find myself looking at it thinking \"it\'s almost the same colour as the grass or dirt, but not quite\"...

Whatever you do, do all your bases the same colours, the sides of the base and the terrain on it, like others have said. Do the same sort of sand/flock/static grass work on all of them. Add whatever sort of extra special items you like, where ever you like, lords, special units, whatever, just so that the army as a whole looks to be standing on the same field, sidewalk, moonscape...whatever. Because if you base them differently the view will be very distracting.

 

[Cesar]

Thanks for the responses.
Excuse me, i guess im not clear.

I have already based my core units, green on green. Green on green is not an option for these special units I am going to do. I\'ll be using a brown gravel on the top of the bases. What i need to figure out, is do i make the bottom section of the bases brown or green.
They cannot be black, my core units have green bases that match thier green tops, it will wont be logical for me to change my bases compeltely.

They must either be green, and uninfy the army, which will then all have green bottoms, or take on a brown, to add distinction to the special units (long beards, slayers, iron breakers), and bring out the colours of their paint jobs.

If I paint the bases of the special units a brown, I can then follow the idea of distinction. I can then have my lords/heroes bases green, the previous brown, or a whole new brown, or leave them black. If I paint my special units bottom part of the bases green, i will be hard pressed to find reason to separate the lords/heroes, they will probably follow suite with the green theme.

All my units match one way or another, by way of beard, the general theme of \"green\", which is more apparent on the core units, the bleached bone scattered throughout the army, and browns on gloves, boots, beards, mugs, pipes, weapon halfs, and gun cranks.

 

[vincegamer]

The point with green is this:
If the stuff on top of the base (gravel, you said) is not green, then the faces of the base cannot be green. Green grass does not lie underneath gravel.

My suggestion is this: Use a dark brown (that\'s what I use) for the bases.
You can then go and paint over the facings on the bases of the rest of your army in brown - brown under green is fine - if you want unity.
Really, no details, just 4 thin flat surfaces. It won\'t take that long.

 

[freakinacage]

i say go over the other ones in black. bring them all together...

 

[freakinacage]

yes, freak is right i say go for black too

 

[freakinacage]

and me...

 

[Cesar]

Black is a nice, I agree. I want to do something with the bottoms of these special units, maybe my lords/heroes... or some of them may remain black bottomed. I like to paint these bottoms, i think it adds to the tabletop feel. These models are not for sale, and are by no means a master peice, they will all be \"gameing minis\", so overall, the table top feel is what im shooting for.
Thanks for the opinions. I\'ve gone with a brown scheme for the special units. I\'m now more then halfway done them, and they are lookin quite styling.

 

[Marmoset]

Well, my basing strategy is to apply gravel (adding a few of those small rocks in the gravel piled up for scenery) and spray black. Then you can drybrush the gravel in layers to any of your own unique colour specifications, and add little plants/static grass etc. I personally prefer static grass to flock very much, and I would recommend just using small tufts of any plant material- a whole carpet just looks weird I too would stick with black bases (if you do choose a coloured one make sure every one is the same), but maybe to set apart your lords/heroes without breaking up the coherence of the army, you could freehand some runes along the front. Maybe you could even have a look at the dwarf alphabet in the rulebook, give your characters names, and depict them in runes on the base. All this is trivial really, but it adds a bit of character, and sets apart the big guys from the rest hope I helped.

Good luck, and happy painting!

~Bill