How to make simple bases

A short time ago, a member of the Bugman's Brewery forum asked me how I do my bases... the answer to this question gives me the perfect opportunity to write a post without showing any dwarf.

Basically, I glue small pieces of cork to make the stones on which my models stand, and I cover the remaining plastic with thickening medium to add some relief to the base.Once the medium has hardened, I use an old brush to apply water-diluted PVA glue on the places where moss or grass is supposed to grow and I sprinkle the whole base with fine sand.


When the glue has dried, I basecoat the base with Chaos black... and the painting job can start! For the rocks, I apply a base of dark grey, such as GW Adeptus Battlegrey. For the ground, I use dark brown, like Vallejo Chocolate Brown and for the grass, Vallejo German Cam. Dark Green.

I then drybrush the stones with lighter and lighter colours (Codex Grey, Fortress Grey and Bleached Bone) and paint the sand with different tones of green. Et voilà ! Two bases (rather) quickly done.

A short history of shields

I've recently started to think about the painting of my clansmen, once the first 10 crossbowmen are complete. My main worry was the shields, since I don't like the GW plastic ones and since I've wasted some of my precious Marauder Miniatures shields on poorly painted minis (I was young, I didn't know). Whatever...

So, after taking advice on Bugman's Brewery forum, I've ordered some Wargames Foundry shields and I've just received them with an additional free (and lovely) viking figure:


Nevertheless, I'm not totally satisfied: the round Viking shields seem a little bit big for my dwarves. And the Norman Kite shields blister was a real disappointment. As shown on the official picture, they're ornamented with nice bosses:

 Errr... and as you can see in my blister, they've been replaced by...  a hole :(

So I'll see what I can do with the round ones!

ADDENDUM (on November 29th) Wargames Foundry has sent me a second set of blisters with bossed shields (for free!).

Crossbowman number 5

Yippee! Already half a unit with this fifth dwarf. If one excepts the chain mail, it was a real pleasure to paint this one: the sculpting job on the face and the hands is really clean, and the shape of the helmet raised some interesting questions about the places where the highlights had to be placed to get a convincing NMM.


Unless I find a better candidate for the November's 'Dwarf Guard' theme, this crossbowman will be my entry for the Bugman's Brewery painting competition.

Crossbowman number 4

All right: my fourth crossbowman, again a 'refreshed' painting of something I committed last year. To tell the truth, I'm a little bit tired of leather armours. So next time, I should be back with chainmails!

Games Day 2012: A new hope

As usual, I went to the french Games Day with my pal Haekel, and, as usual, I'm a little bit disappointed by the event: with so many people and such a poor lighting, it's always difficult to fully appreciate the work of painting and sculpting on the entries. And for us, dawi lovers, it was even worse, since I haven't seen any entry with a beard. Fortunately, Edgar Skomorowski was kind enough to allow me shooting very closely the last models he did for Forge World: three magnificent dwarves that should be on sale in December, which is really good news, since I haven't been expecting anything valuable from Games Workshop for dwarves for a decade.
And finally, the standard bearer with his two fellows:

Edgar, you did an excellent job! I hope other dwarves will follow soon.

I amost forgot: the Slayer Sword was won by Bruno Lavallee, with an Empire griffin. Excellent work (as usual with him):

As you can see, the Warhammer Monster category was very disputed, since the Silver Demon was won by a very talented painter, Jérôme Otremba, with his splendid ork warboss.

Sigh: it's always difficult to find motivation when you know that you can meet one of these guys in your category... I'll see if I can do something with Edgar's dwarves next year!

EDIT on October 30th: OK, the pictures of Edgar's work seem to arouse some interest. Here are two close-up of his standard-bearer (a little blurry, but it's all I've got!)

Crossbowman number 3

My third quareller is a model from the Marauder Miniatures range. I couldn't find a solution to get a proper beard. Never mind, I will hide him behind his quareller fellows... As you can see below, I had already painted his two brothers (for a Golden Demon two years ago): the first one crushes skulls with his hammer, the second one deafens his opponents with his big horn (for more pictures, see the gallery on Haekel & Jaeckel's website). Now, the whole family is ready for war... but not for the same battle (damned bases!)

Crossbowman number 2

Incredible! Two dwarves in less than one week. To be honest, this one is the result of a simple 'refreshing' of the painting I did last year. I've tried to improve the light and shadows on the helmet and on the leather armour, and of course, I've changed the base.
More 'refreshed' dwarves should follow quickly.

Beer again

 This month's theme for the Bugman's Brewery painting challenge is... Beer.

I've decided to restart from zero a crossbowman I had painted last year in my last attempt to make a full unit. I had to work (rather) quickly, and I wasn't totally convinced by the result, which lacked of contrast (my usual flaw).

So, new year, new try.

As you can see, the colours haven't changed a lot. I've tried to deepen the shadows with Dark blue, black and Devlan Mud and to reden the face with thin washes of Arcavia Red (a Rackham Color).
Again, the helmet was the most difficult part of the miniature, and I've tried to go from almost pure black (actually a mix of Chaos Black, Dark Sea Blue and Mahogany Brown) to pure white...


Finally, since a friend of mine noticed that a 'desert' base was not very appropriate with such a heavy leather armour, I've opted for a standard 'stone and moss' base. The moss part is not very convincing: I'll try to improve that on the next crossbowman!