Multibase Woes

[BroCastiel]

I am looking at a new army in 4th, but want to jump onto the multibase wagon. I have always failed in the past.

My normal basing is done once the model is finished being painted and varnished. Then I follow the below steps:

1. Glue sand/details to base
2. Paint base colour, usually brown
3. Wash with brown ink/wash
4. Dry brush with base brown
5. Light drybrush with highlight colour

This process can’t be followed when multicasting because the miniatures prevent brushing access.

So, what method do you guys use?

[FredOslow]

If you are comfortable with drilling and pinning, you can do the entire unit base first and then pin&glue models onto it.
Or if you dont like drilling and pinning you could try to do one row of models at a time so you retain access to the parts that are hard to reach.

[kodos]

the easiest thing to keep your regular workflow is adding the models with a weak glue (PVA/wood glue or any of the poster/paper “tack”) and remove them after you glued the sand/details on the base

it also helps to add a thin sheet (like 0,5mm plastic card) to were the models are standing before so that they are “above” the sand (makes removal easier and looks better)

proceed as normal, add the models back in as step 6 and add any tufts or static grass as step 7 to cover up gaps

Another way is to handle the base as a stand alone model and than add the model by gluing them on top
in that case pinning them with wire (0,8mm copper works well) with optional greenstuff to maximise the surface for the glue
this needs to be done anyway if the something else but plastic is used as basing material as once you need superglue to put the models down, you can just finish the base on its own

[bremer1701]

just use a good super glue and glue the models on the finished base. Thats how i converted my entire warhammer army on multibases 10 years ago and it hold good enough.

[Sceleris]

For pretty much all of the units for all of my armies i paint the models and the bases separately, the glue the models onto the base, then add flock etc at the end.

Any models with integral bases (mantic zombies for example, or most plastic historical ranges) I cut those off before painting. I’ll tend to only pin stuff like cavalry or where there is a very small contact point. Also like to have scenic bits that i can use to pick and an move the bases.

Couple of wip bases for KoM spearmen/shieldwall

[TastyBagel]

I follow your general approach, painting up the mini and then moving over to the basing. For “newer” miniatures that just have feet as the points of contact, it’s pretty easy to do up the bases and minis separately, and just super-glue things together at the end. That’s the case with these Tribal Spearmen from my Herd.

However, models with stands can definitely be a pain. While the stands can be clipped or filed or sanded away, that can be a bit of a pain too, as it can be a lot of work!

I work a lot with models with stands, and with basing pastes. The big things for me have been recognizing that this is a slow process, and then planning around that, and using ranks whenever I can for these multi-bases.

Before priming the mini, I’ll add some paste to the stand, and then that “ground” on the stand gets whatever basing color I am working with, and the rest of the model is painted up regularly. Once the model is done, I then work from the inside-out for the base, working slowly.

The inner-most models in the unit are glued down, and paste applied around the stands. Color can be added to the pastes to save time and brush strokes, but I’d recommend cheaper crafting paints, if you want to go that route. If space is super-tight, I wait for this to dry, and hit it with the base color before adding more units and repeating. It can help to rank things up (giving your brush good lanes to move around in), and it can help to leave bulky bits like shields unattached whenever possible. Here, the bottoms of the Pole-Arms were long and unwieldy, so we were going very slowly.

For these Pikes, I left the shields off, and was able to maneuver brushes around pretty freely, since most of the pikes are very vertical. We added a lot of paste, and but still approached this in chunks, and here we’re starting to add the base color.

The finished results can be a bit “meh” when you are using models with stands. Here’s that same Pole Arms unit. Their stands are crazy-thick, so that are noticeable, but a little extra sand, small rocks, tufts, and anything else you add can help disguise things.

Most of the time, it looks fine on the table. The Pike unit here had more normal-sized stands. Thanks to keeping the shields off, I was able to get brushes in between pretty easily, hitting the base with the base coat, and then some dry-brushing. PVA glue can be smeared with toothpicks to let you add the rocks and sand and tufts, and these look fine on the table, it just takes extra work and planning when it comes to stands.