This post was migrated from my earlier blog:
Painting The Lord of the Rings Miniatures.
Recently, I painted a few bases in order to test out some different ways of painting terrain. This base has been painted using a brown, earthy colour scheme. It was drybrushed with several colours before having Citadel Static Grass applied to the top.
On Painting Grassy Bases
I must say that this method of basing a miniature can be problematic and is, at least in my mind, less pleasing than the others I’ve tried. This is because it leaves a ring of dirt around the grass. It would probably have worked better had I only applied the grass to select regions of the base. That would have made it look more natural, although were I to practice making this type of base I would improve. I don’t expect I will, though, because the way I base my miniatures now is working for me and I only made this one to see how it would look.
There are advantages to this style of base, however. Although there are better ways to base a model, this method is simple to understand: Simply paint a base in brown earth-tones, then spread the carpenter’s glue all over the base and sprinkle on some grass. A base like this would also work well in areas like The Shire, where grass is everywhere, and I do prefer this type of base to some other methods of making a grass base.
One other way I’ve seen used is to simply paint and drybrush the base with different shades of green. Often I see this type of base using bright colours such as Moot Green or Warpstone Glow. I think these bases would probably work better if they used more muted colours, possibly mixes of Deathworld Forest, Loren Forest and small amounts of Elysian Green and maybe even a few browns. This, I think, would give the base a more natural feel.
The exact colours I used to paint the base have escaped my memory, though I know they were based around mixes of Rhinox Hide, Mournfang Brown and Baneblade Brown with some other earthy colours thrown in. I’ve also painted a Mordor themed base, which I’ll reveal in the next post.