A long time ago, I was once told that what makes a miniature look great is ‘bases and faces’. I always remembered this, maybe because it rhymes, so I have set aside some time to really think about how I am going to improve creating bases. For basic miniatures, I am happy to stick to using texture paints, however I want to stretch myself and try new things as well.

I have recently started collecting Ioneth Deepkin – so new that I have only assembled twelve of the miniatures, and have been thinking about a theme for them. I love water effects but wanted to look at something a bit different than just have them as a generic sea based force. I thought about different biomes within the water and settled upon a swamp theme. I shall be using greens and browns for the force themselves but more of that when I get to them.

I began by using water effects paint and seeing what it looked like over sand:

I also used plastic from the blister packs to try and create waves and splashes. They look ok, not great, and not very swampy. Alright for a first play around though.

I then thought about what a swamp looks like, and used Pinterest to do some research. I discovered that swamps have a lot of reeds and plants in them and have a green and brown look to the water as well. So I painted some bases, put different materials on for land. This is how they turned out:

I think the little plants and the reeds look good. I also really like the sand and the dark brown mud texture paint. I think the green on the bottm of the base it too green though. To me, it looks more like slime than the sludge at the bottom of a swamp. I want to try this again with a browner paint. I also want to try and see if I can add swamp weed into the water. This will take more than one layer of the texture paint however and might be reserved for the character bases.

It is a good start however, and I have a lot of ways forward to explore.