Warhammer 40k miniature basing tutorial by Chris Pike in finishing his wonderful Scythes of the Emperor marines.
Without further preamble, Chris’ own words:
1 – This base is for my Primaris Apothecary
– the first thing I’ve done is glue down a piece of slate where his right foot will sit.
2 – Take a lump of greenstuff and push it into the base where the model is going to stand. I usually glue my models to the base and sand around them, but for this I’m showing you the steps on what to do if you paint a model separately.
3 – Rub a little petroleum jelly onto the base of the boot and push the boot into the greenstuff. The jelly will stop the greenstuff sticking to the plastic.
4 – We’ve now got a nice boot print for the model to stand on.
5 – Bases don’t have to be flat. Push down some greenstuff in random areas to make it just a little more interesting.
6 – Rocks are made up from slate chipping a that you normally have in a garden that I’ve bashed with a hammer. These are super glued in place.
7 – I use some sand and some gravel on my bases.
8 – Apply PVA glue to the base and sprinkle some of the gravel on. Not too much of this as it’s just for extra texture.
9 – Either sprinkle or dip the base in the sand.
10 – Complete steps 8 and 9 on the rest of the base.
11 – Take some heavily watered down PVA and apply it to the entire base. This will seal the sand.
12 – Undercoated the base Chaos Black.
13 – Cover the sand with Mournfang Brown.
14 – Drybrush the entire base with Zamesi Desert.
15 – Lighter drybrush of Ushabti Bone.
16 – Basecoat the rocks with Dawnstone.
17 – Shade the rocks Shade rocks with 1:1:1 Rhinox Hide:Black:Medium.
18 – Drybrush the rocks Administratum Grey.
19 – Lighter drybrush of White Scar on the rocks.
20 – Next we’re going to add static grass. Apply PVA glue wherever you want the grass.
21 – Take clumps of static grass and push it onto the glue from the top down. You’re trying to make it stand up a little and don’t want it all horizontal.
22 – Paint the rim Steel Legion Drab.
Looks like a lot of steps, but you start off at number 5 if you attach the model to the base first, and it really doesn’t take long.
Thanks Chris! Look forward to everyone’s variations on this great tutorial.
For Sotha!
Sebastian.
Site owner and creator, Sebastian Stuart has been updating and maintaining the Scythes of the Emperor webpage since 1997. He is canonised as 'ForgeMaster Sebastion' by Richard Williams and LJ Goulding in the Scythes of the Emperor novels by Black Library. 
