ARTICLE

Written by: Mr. Horrible
6th Edition

This technique requires a bit of planning, and is not meant for minis that are already painted. That being said, lets begin:

Step 1: Assemble your minis. I always tend to build and paint and base in units, it is the most efficient way I know to build my army.

Step 2: After they are assembled and dry, take some white glue and thin it a bit with some water. Take your crappy brush and paint this thinned glue onto the base of one of your minis.

Step 3: While still wet, drag the base of the mini through your container of gravel. Shake and tap off the excess and set aside to dry. Repeat steps 2 & 3 until all your minis have gravel bases.

Step 4: Mix up a batch of Mr. Horrible’s Spiffy Sealer (just 2 parts water to 1 part white glue). DAB this mixture over the gravel on the bases of your minis. This helps seal the gravel down. It’s important to dab and not paint. When you start to stroke the brush across the gravel, you start removing pieces of gravel. Let the minis dry again.

At this point you might be saying ‘Jeez, I want to paint already, what is this guy doing to me?” I was there too and stuck it out and was not disappointed with the results. I now look at this technique as part of assembly.

Step 5: After the glue and seal coats are all dried, and the gravel is firmly attached to the base, prime your minis black. I am not going to debate the merits of priming black vs. white. Do what you like, and what you think looks best. This basing technique looks best when minis are primed black. That’s all.

Step 6: Paint your minis! Do a good job now… Don’t worry so much about the gravel on the base; you’ll cover up any paint problems later.

Step 7: After the mini is painted and dry. Start on the base. Whatever color scheme you decided to use, put a medium to heavy dry brush coat down on the gravel and then highlight up to where you like the look. Simple. Because the gravel was primed at the same time as the mini, there are no light spots to worry about in the gravel. If anywhere in the process you knock some gravel loose, after the dry brushing is done you can fill in the bare patches with some static grass glued down.

Step 8: Paint the sides of your minis to match the playing surface.

Step 9: Protect your work with a Matte Finish clear spray topcoat.

Step 10: Go wage a little war!!!

I hope you enjoyed this article.  If you have any comments or suggestions give me an email or visit our forums in our Community section.