When did wargamers start to...

Started by Aksu, 22 September 2017, 08:44:44 PM

Previous topic - Next topic

Aksu

Hullo,
I was leafing through Gush's Armies of Renaissance, and looking at the decidedly old school figure photos I started wondering "when did wargamers start to base their figures on textured bases, hiding the seam between figure and base?"
I started playing in 1977 with plastics, but I can't recall when my basing habits evolved to the modern style.
There must be other evolutions as well... any idea when the fashions changed?
Cheers,
Aksu

kipt

Individual taste?  I did it in 1966.

ErHo

The people saw the beautiful manicured grass bases from early GW armies, and saw that it was good. 

The peasants rejoiced!

IMHO of course, mid-80s is when my bro and I noticed
"Call it extreme if you like, but I propose we hit it hard and hit it fast with a major - and I mean major - leaflet campaign."

- Rimmer

Ithoriel

1979 for me - we bought our first house and it needed quite a bit of work. Experimented with texturing bases with left-over Polyfilla. Still using variants of the same thing today.
There are 100 types of people in the world, those who understand binary and those who can work from incomplete data

Subedai

It must have been in the early to mid 70's after I asked Peter Gilder about how he did his bases at one of the Model Engineering Exhibitions my then club attended. If memory serves he used a mix of filler and sand which was an absolute nightmare to get to stick to the bases.

Before that I remember talking to Bob O'Brien (he of the original WRG triumvirate) -name dropping again but only wargaming veterans will remember his name- and he used a lot of Airfix figures. His method was to mark out the figure's base on thin card, cut it out then glue that to another piece of card to level the base. Again a nightmare but for a different reason -Airfix cavalry bases were not very symmetrical.


I then starting using just filler stippled with an old toothbrush.


MickS
Blog is at
http://thewordsofsubedai.blogspot.co.uk/

2017 Paint-Off - Winner!

FierceKitty

1987, when someone introduced me to epoxies.
I don't drink coffee to wake up. I wake up to drink coffee.

Terry37

I started gaming in the 50's and then we didn't base anything. In the 60's I started basing Airfix figures on cardboard painted green. Then after I got a copy (and still have) of Donald Featherstone's "Tackle Model Soldiers This Way" I saw a broader horizon of gaming beyond the ACW and WW2, but still based figures on green cardboard. I graduated college in the late 60's and started in my career which left no time for gaming. I still bought references and books, and even some figures, (which I also still have unpainted - 25 MM). I retired in 2000 and got back into the hobby, and was really gung-ho after discovering DBA and HOTT.

It was at this time that I first saw sculpted bases and loved the look, so have been doing so ever since. I primarily use Elmer's wood putty and various sizes of railroad ballast as my basic basing material. I like the totally painted look for my elements, so don''t like using the static grasses - for the reason that when everything else is painted, and the static grass isn't it doesn't seem to fit right to me. My method is slow, and really messy in the puttying stage, but it's still worth it to me.

So, all of that said, I guess I'd say 2000 is when I started sculpting bases.

Terry
"My heart has joined the thousand for a friend stopped running today." Mr. Richard Adams

Techno

Mid (?) eighties for me, when I entered a painting comp at GW, and saw how much more finished figures with textured bases looked.

Cheers - Phil

sunjester


fsn

What time is it?



I still don't sculpt bases. I've been flocking for about 10 years, but using static grass more recently.
Lord Oik of Runcorn (You may refer to me as Milord Oik)

Oik of the Year 2013, 2014; Prize for originality and 'having a go, bless him', 2015
3 votes in the 2016 Painting Competition!; 2017-2019 The Wilderness years
Oik of the Year 2020; 7 votes in the 2021 Painting Competition
11 votes in the 2022 Painting Competition (Double figures!)
2023 - the year of Gerald:
2024 Painting Competition - Runner-Up!

Lord Kermit of Birkenhead

Early 1990's for me. Although I did use tetrion in the 80's. Rebasing with that was an absolute nightmare.
FOG IN CHANNEL - EUROPE CUT OFF
Lord Kermit of Birkenhead
Muppet of the year 2019, 2020 and 2021

Ithoriel

Quote from: Terry37 on 23 September 2017, 03:19:19 AM
I like the totally painted look for my elements, so don''t like using the static grasses - for the reason that when everything else is painted, and the static grass isn't it doesn't seem to fit right to me.

Aah! The joy of the internet .. discovering one is not alone :)

Me too!
There are 100 types of people in the world, those who understand binary and those who can work from incomplete data

Leman

In the late 70s I began to add flock to my bases. By the late 80s I was using textured basing material, usually sand and glue, then painting, dry brushing and flock. By the mid 90s I was using textured being material and static grass, but with the smaller scales I have now moved back to flock as it lies lower than static grass and also covers better. Basing has been a real evolutionary process for me so that now, as well as flock or static grass, I use tufts, rocks flowers of different types, muddy puddles, tree trunks and so on.
The artist formerly known as Dour Puritan!

Nick the Lemming

Most people at the club I attended were flocking their bases at least when I started wargaming in the early to mid 80s. Certainly the first army I ever painted and based (15mm vikings) had flocked bases. I think a few people were using miliput or similar to texture bases too, but they were very much the minority. Just about everyone was flocking though.

FierceKitty

Quote from: Nick the Lemming on 23 September 2017, 12:10:32 PM
Most people at the club I attended were flocking their bases at least when I started wargaming in the early to mid 80s. Certainly the first army I ever painted and based (15mm vikings) had flocked bases. I think a few people were using miliput or similar to texture bases too, but they were very much the minority. Just about everyone was flocking though.

And some were rolling out textured epoxy putty instead. Thus was born the age of flock and roll.
I don't drink coffee to wake up. I wake up to drink coffee.