Basing material suggestions

[acctingman]

I've got about 30 tress done up and what I want to do is put them on a base (more than likely polystyrene sheets cut out to shape) but I'm not sure what to texture them with?

Would a mix of pva and sand work? Would I just slather this on the cut out sheet enough to cover the bases of the trees? Paint the pva/sand mixture, flock, grass tufts etc....

Does anyone do something similar? Mind sharing what you do?

I'm wanting larger bases. Something large enough to place 6-10 trees on, possibly more if it's stable enough.

Thank you!

[Duke Speedy of Leighton]

I use a mix of red sand and silver sand.
Mix water pva 50/50, coat base, dip in sand, smaller brush with pva to cover smaller holes, second dip...
Leave
Ink wash
Leave
Dry brush, dry brush lighter, detail (large boulders)
Flock
Scatter
Tufts

[Leman]

I'm a bit lazy when it comes to basing so I tend to use Vallejo textured basing which contains fine grains of pumice. Before using it I mix in a goodly amount of Vallejo tan yellow. This saves painting over the basing material. I lay it on with an old metal nail file. When dry give it a wash of Vallejo chocolate brown and let that dry. Then dry brush Vallejo yellow ochre and then buff. After drying apply static grass, tufts, gravel, flowers, whatever takes your fancy. I use the static grass from Baccus as it is designed for small figures. To apply the static grass I use white glue, otherwise for the other stuff I use UHU. You can see why I use the ready mixed, ready coloured texture to start with.

[Ithoriel]

For areas of woodland, orchards and the like I use a piece of felt of a different shade of green to my base cloth, to make it stand out, with individual trees loosely scattered over it. That allows trees to be moved to let troops enter the area.

Individual trees are based on a disc of card/ mdf/ plastic sheeting depending on what I was basing figures on at the time and textured in the same way figure bases were when I assembled the tree.

You can see my trees in action here:

[Norm]

My trees get individually based, either on a large MDF disc or a large washer / coin for stability. Attached by a hot glue gun, paste texture added to the base, a mix of mainly filler, with some brown paint to kill the white and a pinch of course sand.

For a large base to reflect the. Area of woodlandsd I use pre-made by S&A Scenics (UK) or as already suggested - felt.

[Subedai]

Not too sure how effective a PVA and wood glue mix would adhere to the non porous plastic sheet but I'm no expert. I've always used off-cuts or mis-shapes of the thick artist's card or similar for my terrain pieces and never had a problem. Plus you don't have the teflon effect with anything based on plastic!

I use PVA, slapped on thickly then a dunk in fine to medium sand. Once dry I paint with a light earth mix and drybrush with beige. Static grass, tufts, bushes are all added afterwards.

There a few examples on the blog:

http://thewordsofsubedai.blogspot.co.uk/

The other thing I would suggest is that all your bases -terrain, figures and boards if you have them- are the same colour for continuity

MickS

[petercooman]

I base my trees individually too, just on a metal disc. Paint with vallejo dark earth texture paint, drybrush with vallejo 'earth' and then with gw commando khaki. after that i glue some tatic grass on.

I made some bigger shapes out of cardboard and painted them green to show wood areas, but most of the time i just show the area with lichen.

[Aksu]

Hullo,
I use acrylic pumice gel with some appropriate coloured paint added as texture base. See http://www.the-ancients.com/gemigabok/german-6-mm-recce-battalion/
Smaller scale trees I base two or three on a irregular shaped base http://www.the-ancients.com/gemigabok/6mm-trees-work-in-progress/
Larget trees I mount on washers.
Cheers,
Aksu

[NTM]

I use woodland scenic brown ballast saves me having to worry about painting

[Lord Kermit of Birkenhead]

Why not colour the sand with poster colour.

IanS

[Leman]

Would that take an acrylic wash without bleeding into it?

[acctingman]

Just got back from my local Micheal's craft store. They had some of the Golden pumice gel....that stuff isn't cheap.

Not sure how it looks or how well it works on larger pieces of matte board, but I have buckets of pva glue already and I live 10 min away from a beach and all the sand I'd want.

[paulr]

If it is a sea beach I'm not sure what effect the 'salt' in the sand may have on figures in the long term

I've used river sand in the past but not used sea sand before

[Techno]

Good point, Paul.

To be on the safe side, could you not 'flush' the salt out ?

Half fill a bucket with the sand, then run tap water through it, with a hose, whilst giving the sand at the bottom a bit of a stir with a 'stick'.
When I used to grow a lot of carnivorous plants, I used to have to do this with 'builders sand' to get the tiniest particles out.

These used to flow out from the top of the bucket as it overfilled.

(The sand was used in varying proportions with moss peat, to make up suitable 'composts' for the different types of the plants.)

I had to do this quite a lot for the plants, as I made rather a lot of the compost. Have to admit, it was a bit of a chore....... But for making up enough 'clean' sand for figure basing or terrain, I would imagine half a bucket's worth of sand would last for ages.

I DO realise that in lot of the world, using clean water for this sort of thing would be regarded as extremely wasteful.

I've still got a decent sized jar of sand from a heath.....Which I use for basing WHEN I get a chance to paint a figure. 
Can you still buy 'budgie' sand from pet shops ?.....That's an alternative, if it's still available.

Cheers - Phil

[Lord Kermit of Birkenhead]

I bought a very large sack sand-pit sand from Argos, years ago. Prior to that it was go up on the dunes and fill an ice cream tub.

IanS