All About That Base

As I mentioned in my previous post, I have been fairly busy in the last few months and one of the reasons for this, has been a massive hobby project: painting a customised base for my 15mm minis. I have a whole platoon of infantry with a matching battlemat and the next logical step was adding a set of buildings to my collection. There are many options available on the market and it was difficult to pick one, but in the end, I decided to buy the research station set from Brigade.

I wanted to clearly show that these buildings are in a hostile environment where though the air is breathable, a protective suit is still recommended. I also had plenty of conversion ideas, so I made the following modifications:

• Removed all the roof vents and added top hatches, radar dishes, sensors and other pieces of equipment instead from Brigade’s 15mm accessories range.
• Removed the original door from one of the large garage blocks and added a more industrial looking one, and I also added a chimney at the back.
• Added a crane to the top of the small garage block. The crane was built from Brigade’s small recovery crane and GZG’s Backhoe Loader shovel arm.

The buildings look great with a lot of details, there is a nice variety of them and their price was budget-friendly. The building size perfectly matches my 15mm figures and I enjoyed working with them, however I found one thing really annoying: the bubbles. There were a lot of bubbles in these moulds. I filled them with epoxy putty but they kept showing up later as well. I guess there were air bubbles close to the surface, covered only with a thin layer of resin that came off. I kept finding new bubbles even in the very last phases of the work, in places where I could have not missed them before.

In terms of the colour, I had two sources of inspiration: Halley Research Station and the Lego Classic Space Sets with those blue buildings. The Army Painter had the right type of vibrant blue spray: Crystal Blue Color Primer. I did a colour test on a barrack and two storage huts and I was happy with the result.

After preparing and cleaning the buildings, I masked the doors and the windows with wide masking tape and applied a basecoat with Crystal Blue Color Primer spray. Some spots were not covered properly, these were corrected with GW’s Teclis Blue, which seems to be a perfect match. I added highlights by drybrushing a mixture of Teclis blue and Temple Guards Blue. The red barrack – which will be a hospital – was painted with Khorne Red and was highlighted with Evil Sunz Scarlet. The door and window frames were painted with Vallejo Ivory, the doors were painted Vallejo Neural Grey, washed with Nuln Oil and drybrushed with the same grey again. For the sake of simplicity, the window panes were painted black, without any transmission or effects. The screens of the small terminals – there were plenty of them! – were painted with Coat d’arms Emerald Green and Scorpion Green and a small dot of white in the top left corners. The metallic parts were painted with Vallejo Gunmetal and Bronze, washed with Nuln Oil and highlighted with the same paints.

Once it was all done, I used Bigade’s and Green Stuff World’s number and warning decals to decorate the buildings. I liked the result, it was nice and cartoony and I was tempted to stop at this stage but I wanted the buildings to blend in with the asteroid battlemat better, so I proceeded with weathering.

There are many ways to weather miniature buildings and I decided to try MIG Jimenez Oilbrushers. First, I applied a thin coat of gloss varnish and once it has fully dried I painted a mixture of White, Starship Filth and Medium Grey on the areas where dust would naturally gather: mostly to the recesses, to the flat, horizontal areas and close to the plinths. After about 5 minutes of drying, I carefully removed the excessive amounts with a brush soaked in enamel thinner. It took a lot of time, but the result was worth it. I have a few observations to share about these oil paints:

• It takes almost a day for oil paints to dry and when they are fresh, they look a lot darker.
• You can manipulate them with a brush soaked in enamel thinner, while they are drying or even after that.
• Thin layers of oil paint are semi-transparent and you can make very neat transitions with them.

Once the oil paints fully dried, I applied a thin layer of gloss varnish over the buildings and later a matt layer. Sadly, these steps have changed the appearance of the oil paint layers: part of the transitions disappeared and the tone became darker. This wasn’t completely unexpected, the result is still fine but a bit less detailed than it had been. The most important thing is that the buildings look plausibly dirty now and they match the battlemat better.

This has been my biggest painting project so far: nine buildings, all customised, fully painted and weathered. On the long run, I plan to paint one or two complete armies, a fully equipped gaming table with buildings, terrain features, etc… but this was a milestone. There is still a long way to go: scatter terrain pieces, civilians, vehicles – I will have plenty to paint, but it was fun and I’m looking forward to add the next pieces to my collection.

It took a long time – almost three months – to complete this research base, due to the large number of buildings, the techniques I used, the amount of photos I took in the different stages of the project and also because I am a slow painter. I guess I could have bitten the bullet and finished it a lot faster, but I’m not a commission painter, I didn’t have a deadline to meet. I painted when I had time to paint and when I was in the mood for it – I didn’t want to push myself to keep up with an arbitrary schedule and I kept painting the quality time that recharges me. It’s my hobby and it’s meant to be fun. I’ll get there when I get there, but one day I’ll have a complete gaming table and I’ll enjoy every step of the way.