Knight basing tutorial from Steven.

You said you wanted a tutorial on basing, so here it is. I’ve used a foot knight by Warlord Games
which I got as a freebie from a green stuff tutorial at Salute 2021 (the bedroll is made of green stuff).
I painted it as an excuse to use colours other than green, grey and brown. At some point, my
panzergrenadiers will need some friends, so I can do another tutorial for larger multi-figure bases
which have space for more ambition.

Top left: Aquarium gravel is good for rocks and small boulders. I also have two sizes of gravel which
are specifically for terrain. I could probably do with some intermediate sizes, but I can’t get
everything at once.
Bottom left: Pre-made grass tufts from my local Games Workshop store, and various colours of
lichen.
Right: I have two different colours of flock: brown/red and green. I also have four different colours of
static grass. I mix them all up so the grass cover is less one-dimensional.

1.       Liberally apply textured paint over the whole base. My default is Games Workshop’s Technical Stirland Mud, which provides a generic ground texture. I use a texture applicator for this because it ruins brushes almost instantly.

2.       Superglue aquarium gravel to the base. Apply superglue to the base and then scatter smaller gravel over the hole base. Knock off any loose bits. I usually put smaller gravel around the larger stones.

3.       Drybrush increasingly light tones over the textured paint. The colour chosen obviously depends on the desired end result. Paint the gravel/rocks with increasingly lighter shades of grey.

4.       Add vegetation to the base. I have included:

a.       Small amount of flock in the gaps between the gravel to reflect moss and other ground-hugging vegetation. Apply thinned-down PVA glue to the gaps using a narrow/pointed implement (a cocktail stick would do, although I use the thin end of the texture applicator) then sprinkle the flock over the base and knock off the excess.

b.      Add ready-made tufts of grass (and other vegetation if you want). I drybrush grass tufts with GW’s Karak Stone, which I find gives the grass more definition.

c.       Small bushes can be made with lichen. I mix up the three colours, blob some superglue onto the base, then push the mixed-up lichen into place. Trim the lichen with small scissors to neaten it up. Blob a dark brown such as GW’s Dryad Bark into the recesses to represent woody stems and branches, then blob Karak Stone over the lichen. This gives more definition and blurs the three different colours together.

5.       Finish by applying thinned-down PVA glue to the base and sprinkle static grass over it. Knock of the excess.

The completed figure after adding static grass. I placed the lichen between the two rocks to
represent a small bush growing up between them. I also continued working on my non-metallic
metal technique, even on the chainmail. I stippled increasingly light shades of grey, up to pure white
on the raised areas. It wasn’t difficult and worked better than I thought it would.