Corking it up when I'm going down

I finally bought cork! For twice as much as I could get it online! They always say impatience is a virtue. Found out modelzone have also started selling plasticard, but at £2 an A4 sheet which is ridiculously expensive! You can get the same stuff 20p per sheet off ebay!

Anyway. I also purchased some talus and fine buff, finally giving in to my desire to make sand/egyptian/desert bases. I had a peer at all the tomb kings stuff today as well and I really love it. I see some of those models appearing in my room at some point soon.

Had great fun making a set of bases today and actually got alot more done in a much shorter time than I have done for a couple of weeks. They are currently drying on the floor after their first layer of ink wash. Here's what I've done and how I did it so far;



Cork!

 The cork I bought is quite a finely milled grain. I'm looking to pick up a variety of different grains and thicknesses to make adding character to my bases easier. It's easy to rip off the main roll and pull pieces off to work with.

Getting ideas for final compositions

I played about with the various chunks I pulled off. These are terminator bases. It's always best to have a little play before you glue anything down.

Gllluuuueeee!

I splodge glue everywhere when making these. Because I'm going to be throwing on sand and rocks soon after, there's no need to be careful about whether the glue is going to squish out the edges of the cork - I'm going to be surrounding it with glue anyway! For some pieces it's easier to put the glue on the cork pieces.

Ready to get my tallus on

And here's the point where I don't appear to have any more photos! I added the larger tallus stones first. Only a few here and there, mostly around the edges of the pieces of cork to make it look like stone that had broken away or crumbled down abit. The larger it is the more sparingly you should use it; it's difficult to use too much sand but easy to throw too many giant rocks on something! Then I glued some of the even smaller rocks around those to look like further breakage and scattering. Finally all the base left showing was covered with pva and had the fine ballast poured over.

The ballast I used was actually cheaper, smaller grained, and generally nicer than most sands I've seen.

Mmm sandy

Here's the bases all stoned up! I threw a random square base on there because I was having fun but ran out of terminator ones. I actually also built a set of the little normal space man bases but didn't photo them.

To help ensure all of the sand was firmly bonded, and to begin the basecoating, I made up an ink wash of 4:2:1 burnt umber: raw sienna: sepia inks thinned with a little bit of matt medium and a splodge of 10% flow. I dolloped it over everything.

The sand and cork are both quite absorbant, so it's important you put something on them before you begin painting properly. Most people use a wash of thinned pva glue, some use ink washes. Some don't and end up with crappy spongey bases - it is completely up to you.

I'm looking forward to painting them tomorrow and making some more! I've even got the golden grass to go in and look all dead and dry.

Cutest curious puppy ever