Basing Part III

Hi,

Here's the next part of the basing article that I've been doing. This section of the little adventure deals solely with adding the paint to the base.

Here's a pictorial view of the paints involved:

GW, Graveyard Earth or Steel Legion:

Vallejo Desert Yellow:

Vallejo Iraqui Sand:

Vallejo Pale Sand:

One question that I have been asked again and again is are these colours suitable for the HYW? Well, not all of the battles were fought in harsh encumbering muddy conditions (indeed the only famous battle fought in these conditions was Agincourt). My army is based on the Battle of Verneuil (a battle of equal importance to Agincourt for many reasons) and it was fought in august under a baking sun. Much of the earth in Northern France has a high clay content giving the soil an almost orange look and that is why I have chosen this palette for the basing.The fact that a lighter base helps reflect the light around a miniature is an added bonus of course.

OK then, down to business. The whole base is given a wash of GW Graveyard Earth and left to dry. As I undercoated the bases black i allow for another such wash and then paint around the edges with the same paint but slightly thicker in consistency. 

This is all then given a heavy dry brush of Vallejo Desert Yellow like so:

 Next another dry brush of Vallejo Iraqi Sand:

This is then followed by a much lighter highlight of Vallejo Light Sand:

If you happen to accidentally dry brush any of the shoes on the mini's don't worry, it would have been a dusty day on the day of the battle. If you're not going for a dry day, then you have simply wet the end of an old brush with saliva and gently brush away the offending paint. Likewise, some areas may be hard to reach on the base. This is not a problem as the this can be dealt with in the next section- Making the bases Pretty! That will be taken care of today and the pics posted up later.

Bye for now.