After having put the appropriate ballast and sand on the base, I begin by painting on a very watered down coat of Scorched Brown Paint. The thinned paint seeps into the crevices and covers all nooks and crannies of the base. Again be careful to avoid the acrylic if you are doing a valkyrie base, as you can't really touch it up. I bumped it once with paint and as usual, I had luck watering the paint down on the acrylic and then sopping it up with a larger dried brush.
Next, once the brown paint had dried, I took Bleached bone paint and drybrushed the surface of the sand and ballast. I don't bother being too neat at this stage, since the majority of this work will be covered up by flock and other gaming bits.
Finally, to give the base some character and some more dimensions, I dig through my bits box and find some suitable bits to glue down on the base. I simply used a strong superglue base and pressed this down on the ballast and sand.
Then I paint each of the bits their base color and then wash them with either badab black or devlan mud for a more rusted feel. For the bits in the picutre, I painted the bits boltgun metal and then brushed on both colors of wash.
Next time, I will show you how I layer differing types of static grass and modeling grasses to create a staggered effect on the bases. In the next post, the base will be finished.
