Decorative Ruin Base

I am slowly coming out of my creative slump thankfully and I have spent the last few days playing around with this base. The idea of a decorative ruin base is part of my Thousand Sons test mini and I thought about placing my Marine on such a base as I imagined he would be walking around some partially uncovered ruins on his home planet Prospero.

As usual I the conditions I set down for my self were that it had to be cheap, easy to make, easy to obtain the stuff used on the base and lastly it had to include left over plastic sprue.

I unfortunately could not include the sprue because my idea was just for the decorative floor to be partially visible through the sand.

I started with a piece of card (the type that your models come in from GW) cut to the shape I wanted. I glued it 'plastic side' down,  then drew on a design with pen on the paper side, pressing quite hard as I want to see the design after applying paint etc.

Next was to add the sand, I live by the sea and use sea sand which can be a bit fine as I had to redo some on this base.

Apply base colours, I didn't even prime this base before painting it.

As I was going for a marble look I started with Codex Grey then mixed in more and more white for the next couple of layers. I applied a very diluted paint in blotches to give the impression of the different hues in marble. When that was dry I used diluted mixes of Ogryn Flesh wash and Black wash to create the marble 'lines' across the surface. Then when it was dry I went in with diluted Blue and Red washes and painted in the pattern. Once that was dry I went back with my grey/white mixes and touched up the buts that I thought needed it.

Paint the sand as per your taste, add grass and that's it.

The next post will show my Thousand Sons Marine as he is now almost finished.

Hope you like the base. As far as my conditions go it cant really be any cheaper and easier.

Comments welcome as usual.

Vitor