Welcome to the first in the Spooktober series! To celebrate the month of October and the lead up to Halloween, I decided to make the next few posts centered around my Grand Alliance: Death armies, Legions of Nagash and Nighthaunt. This is the Space Dinosaur Minis' first seasonal event, and I'm looking forward to how it goes.
The first Spooktober post is a tutorial on how I make texture paste for my Ravenmarch bases. I used to use Games Workshop texture paints, but seeing as I don't want to either spend the time to go to the store or spend the money, I decided to try my hand at making it at home.
As you can see in the picture above, I think the result is a resounding success. Now, a question you may ask is, what is the difference between using a texture paint, and simply gluing a coat of sand on top of the base and painting it over? The end result with a texture paint is that there is more undulation to the texture, instead of a flat plane with a little bit of texture. This variety becomes really apparent with drybrushing, making your bases more visually interesting.
The first step to getting the texture paint to work is to prime your bases. Since you're not gluing the sand directly to the base, the primed layer gives the paint something to latch onto.
Once the primer is dry, you can start work on the texture paint. I use sand that I collected from the beach, but you can use any fine grained sand that has some irregularities to it. If the grains are too uniform it can make the end result look too manufactured and unreal. The paint is cheap Apple Barrel acrylics that you can get at Michael's or any hobby store.
This next part is a little less defined and more up to personal preference. Mix the paint together the paint, sand, and a smidge of white PVA glue until you achieve a texture that you are pleased with. This may take a few tries, and each batch will be slightly different. This is remedied at a later step.
Once the mixture is to your satisfaction, smear it onto the base with a cheap brush that you don't much care for. The sand is obviously abrasive, and it will wear down the brush and ruin the tip. Try to cover as much of the flat base as possible with a nice even layer of the texture paint. Before the paint has a chance to dry, wipe off any paint that has gotten onto the rims of the bases.
Once the bases have completely dried, inspect the surface of each. If there are smooth areas or the texture looks really patchy, just dab a bit of PVA glue and sprinkle the same sand that was used earlier. After that dries, paint over the bases with the same color from before.
At this point I let the bases dry over night. Trying to drybrush slightly wet texture paint just leads to frustration as you accidentally scrape it off. With a lighter color than the base paint (in this case white), lightly drybrush the surface of the base. This will really make the undulations and grains really pop and makes for more interesting bases.
At this point you're done! Now you can glue any models you want to the base. I used super glue, and the models stuck quite well. Since this a Spooktober post, I used this tutorial as an opportunity to re-base some skeletons I've had lying around for awhile. They'll become a part of my Ravenmarch army, which will be making an appearance in the near future.
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