Normally I either base a unit as it is done, or base the whole project in one go. However I have finished painting what I have on hand and decided to base it up even though I will be painting more figures for the Mexican American War II project.
Phase 1 - Rocks
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| All figures have been glued to the tan primed 25mm bases (1.5mm thick). |
So out came my three containers of rock, glue brush, water, Elmers glue and I then set down to "rock" 50 figures.
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| My impromptu work station. |
I had cut out a "special" base for the artillery piece. At first I was going to leave the cannon un-based, but decided to raise it to the same level as the crew. Initially it was just going to be on a 60mm round base but thought it might look a little better if I notched out a few spaces for the crew to tighten up on the gun.
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| A little careful exacto work, sanding and walla! |
In all it took around an hour of to get all figures rocked, not too bad considering a few phone calls interrupted my "zone". It is actually get pretty boring work; dip brush into glue, spread all over base, sprinkle a couple of "large" rocks on it, cover 80% of the base with the "thick" rocks, then dip the whole base into the "dirt" to cover everything else and finally blow off excess dust, and repeat.
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| Dirt and rocks for all! |
This is going to be my main Deployment point ... I'll print up an Imperial Mexican flag next. I also have a couple of ideas for additional deployment points (secondary and movable), but wanted to have this one done right away.
There still is some work that needs to be done on my unit of skirmishers. I am going to add tufts to the kepi and paint them green. As most of the army is an ad hoc 'what if' 1864 force, I am taking a few liberties with the uniforms, so pom poms for the Cazadores it is!
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| The pants are much lighter in person! |
Phase 2 - Grass
Next up, desert grass that will work on green table cloth! I wanted to avoid the "green" look I normally go for as these figures are supposed to be running around Southwest america. But as the vast majority of games are going to be played on the green cloth they needed to blend in with the cloth as well. So I mixed a special blend of burnt grass and earth flocking, with a touch of green in it.
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| Materials I used to blend a "desert" grass |
Typically I cover three quarters of the base with glue and dip the base into a green flock mix. This time I wanted a more "spotty" look, so I just dabbed the glue on around the base before dipping it into the flock. Some bases had more, some had less grass.
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| The Deployment Point, sans a flag |
As it is just two steps to apply the grass mixtures, this step went a lot faster, around 20 minutes to do the whole lot of the bases. I then let glue dry a little longer before I add some tufts to few bases. I usually don't do too many on rank and file bases though.
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| The Corporal is on a 30mm base, so gets a tuft! |
After the glue has dried completely, I spray all the figures with flat varnish. Not only does this protect the paint job, it also dulls the dip gloss and helps glue down the flocking.
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| Same figure as seen above in the Rocks section. |
The artillery base turned out pretty good ... fortunately I only had to do one of them :)
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| Top down view of the completed gun section. |
The bulk of my basic force is now done, though it is missing the French Foreign Legion section. I'll also paint up some extra groups and a cavalry group to use as supplemental units for different scenarios.
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| Former Republican troops (left) and Imperial Army (right) |
I'll order up the Legion and Cavalry figures later this week from Gringo 40s.
