When I was doing this blog before some years ago, this little post was one of my most popular, so I thought it might be a good idea to repost this as I recreate my site.
In 2020, I saw some bases John at Just Needs Varnish! did and liked them. His work was a springboard for my experiment, and this is what I came up with as a result.
The basing process I used is as follows:
- Glued a couple of rocks and an Army Painter tuft onto an old, unprimed base, then applied Vallejo Dark Earth Texture (26.218). I watered a bit of the texture down and used it as a wash on the rocks too. I used some texture wash on the plant as well.
- Washed base and plant with Agrax Earthshade and Nuln Oil in two steps. Used some watered down Agrax on the rocks, but I skipped Nuln Oil because I didn’t want to darken down the rocks too much.
- Dry brushed with Gorthor Brown.
- Applied Glossy Nuln Oil to base and plant. Thinned the wash down greatly so I would achieve some shine without excessive darkening and applied to the rocks.
- I think I could do some additional dry brushing with Gorthor Brown again, if I wanted to lighten things up more, but I’m happy with how it looks for darker earth.
The picture above from John is the one that started me on my experiment and was featured on a 2020 painting challenge I ran.
I’m starting to build up enough posts that I might have to put a navigation menu or something on this site soon.
Be well!
Anne
Anne's Immaterium 
Well, you certainly achieved the wet and muddy look on the test base. Interesting that you glued down the tuft first, they’re usually the last-to-second-last thing I add.
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Thank you. I usually glue down the tufts toward the end as well, but this time, as I remember, I glued it down early on because I wanted to use the washes and watered down texture on the tuft itself during the process.
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Nice work on the muddy bases, Anne! 🙂 They look very realistic! And thanks for the mention, although I think I maybe just pressed that artillery limber a bit too far into the milliput base accidentally!
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Thank you, John. Of course, you’re welcome. You are the one who gave me the idea after all. Seems like it was a happy, little accident then. I thought you did it on purpose. It added a touch of verisimilitude having that wheel sinking into the mud.
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The bases look very muddy indeed. Its not hard to imagine some Nurglites being right at home in that environment! 🙂
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You’re right, I think the Nurglings would like it a lot, but I’m probably going to be mean to them when I’m painting my daemons and give them a cracked red earth base or something instead of the usual browns and greens. I haven’t entirely decided yet though.
I’ll save the mud for if I ever paint Eldar. 🙂 🙂
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Mud and Eldar! That is an interesting and surprising combo. Unlike Nurgle, I’m a big fan of the Eldar so I will look forward to it! 😀
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I doubt I’ll ever do it since I’m not really an Eldar fan. I just figure if I ever do paint one, no one ever seems to model them that way so why not? Eldar surely have to fight in the mud sometimes, I imagine.
Sort of like how Death Guard and Nurgle Daemons might have to fight in the desert?
I guess I just like to see what everyone else is doing and do something different sometimes. 🙂
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In Warhammer, anybody can fight anybody anywhere 🙂 Eldar are one of my preferred 40k factions so you’re breaking my heart. I thought you had seen the light and were ready to leave Nurgle behind! 🙂 And yes, in Warhammer, doing something a little different is a good way to make your work standout. There’s so many hobbyists working in that space that its not easy to be unique!
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Aw … I love elves. When I play D&D I almost always end up being some kind of elf. I gotta say, when I’m done painting Death Guard I’ll probably turn my attention toward Sisters. I’ve always wanted to play that army and with the new sculpts I’m really feeling it. I’ll probably at least paint up a Combat Patrol box of them.
My husband and I have been watching Hammer & Bolter shorts and he said the one with the Sisters was the best one yet in his opinion. I have to agree. It was actually kind of moving, which I don’t usually expect from my over-the-top Greek Tragedy in Space stories.
And I’ll probably always have some boyz on the back burner because they were the army I started with and although I got a pretty penny for my 5000 points or so of Soviet-style orks when I sold them, I realize now that I shouldn’t have. That kind of regret happens so much in our hobby, doesn’t it? In fact, someone told me there are some old AoBr boyz kicking around the bits box at my FLGS, so I’m thinking of taking a drive down tomorrow and digging them out.
As for Eldar, they’re fer krumpin’ nub paintin’ unlez yerz paint em ded! (No offense). 🙂
I did notice that one of the two choices for the yearly free miniature give-away GW is doing this year is for an Eldar model. I thought it looked pretty cool.
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Sisters is another favorite 40k faction of mine so I can live with that! I like elves in all their guises too. Even space elves! Fantasy elves are my preferred variety though, if I can pick.
5,000 points of orkz is a lot! Were they third party? I would assume so given the Soviet-style. That would definitely make them stand out and I could see that really appealing to certain people as well.
And yes, the Warhammer Plus Eldar miniature is very cool. I’m tempted by it, though there are many tempting minis out there truthfully!
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I’m right with you on that with elves–for some reason I prefer the Fantasy ones.
Yes, my Waaagh! was pretty extensive, that’s for sure but then that was pretty much the only thing I was painting for years until I discovered Daemons. I sourced mostly from Kromlech for things like AK-47s, some variant heads and so on. So they were a hybrid of GW and third party. From a distance you’d think they were standard 40K Orks, but then you’d look closer and see little red stars on their hats or Soviet-style weapons. I even “looted” a T-62. I couldn’t bring the army to play at the local GW store, which was a bummer, though most of the tournaments I did back then didn’t have a problem with them.
They were a lot of fun to play with and I should have kept them but I needed space and besides the 5000 points of painted Orks, I had another maybe 5000 points of unpainted stuff, plus stuff from other armies when I worked at a failing game store for about a year and the owner toward the end paid me in 40K stuff, lol, until I decided to go find something else to do. What i should have done was sold all of the unpainted stuff and boxed away the painted army, but OTOH I’m starting again with a clean slate and a desire not to have my hobby room to permanently overflow with unpainted stuff.
Yes, that’s the true … there are many tempting miniatures out there, that’s for sure.
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Kromlech is great for “alternate” orks so that makes sense. It does sound like an awesome army and I agree that GW is too protective of what can be used in their stores. Its been that way for a long time and might never change, it seems like.
Try to stay disciplined and keep in mind what you can and cannot realistically do. I was great at this for quite a few years but more recently, I’m starting to get impulsive and buy too many things which is the vast majority of hobbyists I reckon 🙂
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Yes, staying disciplined is definitely the way forward for not building up a closet full of unpainted and unused models, and I’m going to try and not let that happen.
That was part of why I did the Assembly Challenge last month. Besides being fun and a good way to come back to blogging, I thought it might motivate me to do a lot of assembly in a short time and it did!
Now that it is February, it is time for me to start painting so I have some stuff to show for Dave Stone’s challenge.
My hobby plan is to get my Death Guard and Daemons painted and then after that get a Combat Patrol box of Sisters so I have a loyalist and a Chaos force.
The old me would have been painting a little bit of each at the same time, but the new me is going to do them one army at a time.
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The challenge did the same thing for me and that sounds like a great plan. Staying disciplined is hard truthfully and make sure that the painting stays fun! That is why I bounce between different subjects and games a lot. I tend to get bored otherwise. Having said that, we’re all different and I’m sure you’ll figure out what works best for you soon enough!
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That’s true, it is hard to stay disciplined sometimes. Especially when it is a hobby where the whole point of it is to have fun. I can see why you’d want to change subjects because of the potential for boredom. That’s what tends to lead me to change things up with hobbies as well.
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Great work Anne. Very muddy looking or Clatchy as they say on Shetland.
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“Clatchy.” I love that word. A new one for me, thank you!
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North East of England we had Clarty… As in stay out the clarts.
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I’m definitely adding that one to bust out when I’m playing 40K here in the States!
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Great looking bases Anne, and taking inspiration from someone else’s work shows they were on the right track.
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Thank you, Dave. Yes, I think John’s basing paired well with the miniatures he painted back then. I’ve never used that basing style for anything, but I am glad to have the recipe around just in case.
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