Afghan Basing Experiements

We return to our regularly scheduled miniatures posts. 

This week has been devoted to basing. Previously I would drown a base in PVA, dunk it in a box of sand, and then slather on texture paint, several washes and a single drybrush. The result can be seen on my Imperial Ratmen and the Astropath. It looked alright, but not for the amount of effort that was being put in. The glue always took quite a long time to dry, the texture paint and washes likewise stayed wet for a long time.

The new method resembles the old one, but it should be both faster and a little subtler. Instead of large-gained sand I have elected to glue (unused!) cat litter over a base of flattened spackle. The litter is placed only in divets or large gaps of the spackle. This reduces drying time since less glue is used and also makes sure that I won't have half-dry glue clogging my paintbrush at any point, which was a problem with the earlier method. The spackle does take some time to dry, but less than before. I also think it looks better. After gluing everything down I now prime before taking other steps, to seal the spackle in. Then I apply a basecoat of regular paint, one wash, and two or three layers of drybrush which can be completed very quickly. The attached image shows my results after experimenting with different colours of primer and paint. The four on the right use two desert base recipes from this tutorial by RookieBrushes. The left four are my own recipe consisting of:

• Steel Legion Drab basecoat
• Baneblade Brown drybrush (heavy)
• Zandri Dust drybrush (medium)
• Screaming Skull edges only drybrush (light)

2 and 4 are identical, 1 had a Skrag Brown drybrush, and 3 was primed white and given an Agrax Earthshade wash after the basecoat. Overall, I think 3 is my preferred method, and the one I wish to iterate on. Less glue should be used to keep the gravel as more of an accent like on 2, but otherwise it is what I will be working from in the future.