28mm Basing guide - techniques

28mm Basing guide.

This is a short guide to basing 28mm miniatures, this is one of the last steps ideally after you have finished painting your figures. I generally base on plasticard: High Impact Polystyrene Sheet (HIPS) commonly known as plasticard in the UK or styrene sheet in North America. The best way to cut it is to score it to the desired size and then snap off the waste.

Alternatively laser cut mdf could be used, for 25mm round bases I use U.K. two pence pieces which give a nice weight to the base.

Stage.1 - glue & filler.

I use superglue flooded under the figures base to secure it, remembering you don't need a lot to safely glue the metal miniature to its base.

Then I use filler to the base, ideally some of it covers over the edge of the metal miniatures base to help the whole thing a bit more durable.

filler with a sandy rough texture which hardens rock solid.

various tools to apply the filler

filler added no need to be too neat in the application yet.

 Stage.2 - grit & texture

select your basing grit

PVA glue applied neat with a brush

Large coarse rocks are applied first then gradually sprinkle on the smaller grades.

Tea leaves from a teabag are the final texture to be applied, the tea leaves will represent grass.

 Stage.3 - painting the base
Wait for the PVA to set hard, heat can help to speed up the setting process. Then brush off the excess scatter material with a soft brush.

I use enamels and oils to colour the base.

greens flooded into the tea leaves

browns added to the areas to represent the dirt.

 Stage.4 - Drybrushing.
This stage involves the most amount of work as the various tones of colour are brought up:
Greens have yellow and tan added.
Burnt umber browns have tan added, then tan + yellow and white for the extreme highlights very gently brushed on. Any mistakes can be corrected by flooding in a darker colour to take it a stage back.

Then the grasses are added, I make these myself and sell them occasionally on eBay at pjw_wargames_supplies , the shrubs represent low lying bushes, nettle patches etc.

The finally the whole model receives at least one coat of 'Testors Dullcote' matt varnish, it's stinky stuff but the best varnish spray on the market.

Austrian Hussar squadron of the 4th Regiment (Hesse-Homburg)

miniatures made by Perry and painted a few days ago.

The finished result, remembering a little care and avoiding rushing the basing stage can produce a nice neat effect which will last a very long time, I've occasionally bounced some of these bases off a hard floor with little to no damage to the model.

Anyway that's all there is to it.
All the Best,
Peter.

28mm Napoleonic Cavalry squadrons: Life Guards, Chasseur a Cheval, Chevaux leger and officers.

28mm Napoleonic Cavalry squadrons: In an attempt to boost my Napoleonic armies regularly I have decided to break down the proposed regiments into squadrons of six figures, that way at least I can field some well balanced armies quickly without having to wait a long time. So this month I have been mostly painting:

the British 2nd Regiment of Life Guards 1st Squadron 1815,  Waterloo Hundred Days Campaign.

The red uniforms come out nice and bright, whilst painting these I realized the crest wasn't very different from Austrian cuirassier helmets of the period.

and painted the
French 4th Regiment of Chasseur a Cheval, 1st squadron 1812-1815. 

One of my favourite French Cavalry regiments because of the colour schemes, green seems to go well with a lot of different facing colours, I'm going to want some more of these Chasseurs regiments.

and finally I bought the Bavarian command base from Perry miniatures to complete the:
Bavarian 3rd Regiment (Kronprinz) Chevaux-leger, 1st squadron.

The Command stand

the troopers were completed for my previous blog post.

and painted a squadron of the 1st Regiment of French Hussars for ebay...to fund the buying of more Stuff :) I got some bids on these Hussars already from some fantastic ebayers.

Also some French Infantry officers.

 this officer and the next are both the same code, it's interesting to see how different the faces can look, and of course the different horse colours help

This guy definitely has attitude.

Next will be a few Austrian squadrons comprising Cuirassiers, Lancers and Hussars.
Anyhow all the Best,
Peter.