Cork base tutorial. 56k warning.

Sonnyslayer

New member
Hi!
This is my first tutorial so don\'t expect anything spectacular.
This humble tutorial will show you how to make cork bases.


What you will need:
Wine corks
Needle-nose pliers
White glue
A base for your mini
Sand and foliage
Super glue
A couple of brushes and paint
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First step in the art of corking is to cut you wine cork into smaller pieces. About 5mm thick. And yes. Thats the metric system. If you want to know how many inches,feet, miles or legs 5mm are I suggest you use google.
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Now you grab you\'re pliers and go crazy on the poor cork disk. You don\'t want your cork rocks to be round so break of the edges with your pliers and make it look like a stone.
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Arrange the cork on your base and see if your mini will fit. If it doesn\'t fit on the cork you should try another mini, or another base. Whatever floats your boat.

When your happy with your arrangement you grab your white glue and squeeze out a nice glob of gooey glue. Slap on your cork and some sand and let it dry.
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Dilute white glue with water. 2 to 10 ratio. Should look like milk. It wont taste like milk but it will seal the cork and sand and make it easier to paint. Prime the base, white or black doesn\'t matter.
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When its dry and ready for painting you start with a base coat of VMC gray Green.
Drybrush with VMC Light Grey and then VMC Pale Sand.
Wash the rocks with a mix of VMC Black and VMC Black Green.
Wash again with the previous wash mixed with some VMC Flat Earth. Its important to add color to the rock. Keep washing with different browns and greens. Just go crazy with your supple of greens and browns.
When you think you\'re done with the washes you go back with the pale sand and lightly drybrush the rock again.
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Paint the sand with VMC Flat Brown wash with green/brown like we did on the rocks. Lightly drybrush with pale sand+flat earth.
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Now its time to add foliage. I like to use a wide range of foliages with a lot of color.
On this base i used red, orange, and yellow clump foliage. Some tall grass, a few leaves and some green static grass. Use super glue and tweezers to apply the smaller stuff.
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And thats it! You\'ve been corked! It took me about 15 minutes to paint the base. And 2 hours to take all the crappy pics and write this tutorial.
I hope you liked it!
 
D
I have to say man that is pretty damned good. I for one am awful at making bases, especially out of cork! So this is really a great help. You should post it in the CMON articles section. Would make it easier to reference back to.
 

Cleezy

New member
Nice little tutorial there, looks good and quite simple. One question did you paint straight over the cork?

Also as said post it in the articles section.
 

Gilvan Blight

New member
Just wondering why you didn\'t do this as an article. I was on here checking out the articles for almost a year before I got involved in the forums.
 

Sonnyslayer

New member
Thanks for the comments guys.

@Cleezy
I sealed the cork with dilluted white glue. It makes it harder and it doesnt absorb the paint.
 

Azu

New member
Hi,
great idea, liked it very much, I usually use styrofoam which doesn´t look bad, but kork does look better ( nice effect on the sides ). Also liked the green- making it look more like covered in moss.
 

mickc22

Granddad!
nice one sonny,
cork tiles are pretty good for this as well, and fairly cheap. A pack of tiles will last you almost forever, and might be easier to find for some
 

EldinTux

New member
You can also get cork feet for furniture which helps to protect floors. Added advantage they come with a sticky back :D
 

Bigdennis52

New member
this is a very good article, you should put it under the articles section. Great info. You made it very simple and put step by step photos of what it should look like.

If anyone is having trouble finding cork, the best place to look is the dollar store, they have coasters, for mugs / cup made out of cork, like 12 for a dollar good size, last forever, you can also find wine corks in there too

Good stuff, keep it coming.
 
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