This guide is about decorating a base rather than choosing its diameter. Basing is the highest-return-per-minute work in miniature painting: fifteen minutes of texture, colour and a drybrush turns a model that looks like a painted toy into one that looks like it is standing somewhere.
It is also the strongest tool you have for making an army look like an army. Models painted over two years, with visibly improving technique, will still read as a single cohesive force if every base matches.
Why bases matter visually
A base is roughly a third of what someone sees when they look at a miniature on a shelf. An unpainted black plastic disc under a carefully painted model creates a hard visual break at exactly the point where the eye wants context.
A finished base does three things: it grounds the model in a place, it provides a neutral frame that makes the model's colours read more clearly, and it repeats across the army to create unity.
Materials
- Texture paste. The fastest route. Spread it on, let it dry, paint it. Available in various grits.
- Sand or grit. Cheap and effective. Play sand, aquarium gravel and modelling ballast all work; mixing grades looks more natural than one uniform size.
- Cork. Broken cork makes convincing rock and rubble. Wine corks or cork sheet, torn rather than cut, for irregular edges.
- Small stones. Genuine scale rocks with no effort. Rinse and dry them first.
- Modelling compounds. Epoxy putty or air-dry clay for sculpted ground, craters and steps.
- Static grass and tufts. Fast vegetation. Tufts are more forgiving than loose static grass for beginners.
- Paints. Two or three earth tones plus something pale for drybrushing covers most schemes.
- PVA glue for sand and grass, super glue for stones, cork and anything heavy.
Sensible handling
Loose sand, grit and static grass get everywhere and are unpleasant to breathe as dust. Work over a tray or a sheet of paper, decant rather than pour, and avoid blowing excess off with your mouth. Tearing cork releases fine particles too. When cutting cork or trimming bases, cut away from your hands and keep the blade sharp; a blunt blade needs more force and slips more readily.
Five complete beginner schemes
Wasteland
The default for good reason: quick, forgiving and suits almost any colour scheme.
- Apply texture paste or PVA and sand across the base, leaving a small gap at the rim.
- Let it dry completely, several hours for paste.
- Base coat in a dark brown.
- Drybrush a mid brown, then a light bone or pale grey, keeping the drybrush progressively lighter and more selective.
- Add two or three tufts of dry-looking grass, placed off-centre and never in a straight line.
Urban rubble
Suits armies with a harder, more industrial feel.
- Glue down a few pieces of broken cork or small flat stones as slabs and chunks.
- Fill around them with fine grit.
- Base coat dark grey.
- Drybrush mid grey, then a light grey. Keep the progression tight so it reads as concrete rather than snow.
- Add restrained debris: a small patch of rust-coloured wash in one corner, or a single piece of exposed metal. Restraint is what separates rubble from clutter.
Desert
Warm and bright, excellent under cool-coloured armies.
- Fine texture paste or fine sand, kept relatively smooth.
- Base coat a mid warm earth tone.
- Wash with a light brown to settle the texture.
- Drybrush a pale sand, then a very light bone on the highest points.
- Optional sparse dry tufts, or leave bare for a cleaner look.
Alien ground
Where you can be genuinely creative.
- Texture as normal, or use a smoother compound for something less earthlike.
- Base coat a neutral dark, such as a very dark grey or a desaturated purple-brown.
- Drybrush with an unexpected colour: pale lilac, cold teal, sickly green.
- Add unusual vegetation, coloured tufts, or small clusters of a bright accent colour.
The trick is keeping the ground itself subdued and putting all the strangeness into one or two accents. An entirely alien-coloured base competes with the model.
Snowy ground
The most commonly botched scheme, because people make it entirely white.
Convincing snow needs the ground beneath it to show through. Real snow collects in hollows and on flat upward surfaces, and gets scraped away from raised edges and anywhere something has walked.
- Build and paint the base as a wasteland or rubble scheme first, complete with drybrushing.
- Apply snow effect paste or a bicarbonate-and-PVA mix selectively: into recesses, on flat areas, against the leeward side of rocks.
- Leave earth and stone showing on raised edges and around the model's feet.
- Keep it away from the very rim.
Roughly 60% snow to 40% visible ground reads far better than 100% snow.
Base rim colour
The rim is a frame, and a consistent frame across an army is one of the cheapest cohesion wins available. Pick one and apply it to every model.
| Rim colour | Effect |
|---|---|
| Black | Neutral, recedes, makes colours above it look brighter. The safe default. |
| Dark brown | Softer than black, blends naturally into earth-toned bases. |
| Matching the ground | Base appears to extend past its edge. Looks natural but less crisp. |
| An army accent colour | Distinctive and unifying, but demands very neat application. |
Whatever you choose, paint the rim last and paint it cleanly. A tidy rim makes a rough base look deliberate; a messy rim undermines a good one.
Base before or after painting the miniature?
Both approaches are valid and it is worth understanding the trade-off.
Basing first means the model is glued to a finished base and you paint it in place. You get full access to the ground around the feet, and the base is genuinely finished before you start. The risk is that basing materials and drybrushing get onto the model as you work, and you have to paint around the base afterwards.
Basing last means painting the model separately, then doing the base and attaching the model. Cleaner, better protects your model paintwork, and lets you decide the base scheme once you can see the finished model. The risk is a visible join at the feet and slightly awkward access.
For beginners, basing last is usually easier. For batches, basing last is also faster because you can do thirty bases as one production run.
Do not let the base overpower the model
Bases are supporting cast. A base with three tall rocks, a skull, a bolt-action rifle, four tufts and a puddle draws attention away from the thing standing on it.
Practical limits worth respecting:
- One point of interest per base is usually enough. Two on a character.
- Keep base elements lower than the model's knees unless you are deliberately posing the model on something.
- Keep base colours less saturated than the model's colours.
- Skulls are optional. Almost nobody needs a skull on every base.
Making 30 to 50 bases look consistent
Consistency comes from process, not care.
- Do them all at once. A single production run in one sitting produces far more consistent results than thirty bases done over six months.
- Mix your materials in one batch. If you are mixing sand grades or making up a paste, mix enough for the whole army in one container.
- Write down the recipe. Paint names, drybrush colours, rim colour. You will be adding models to this army for years.
- Keep tufts sparse and irregular. Two or three per base, never centred, never evenly spaced. Consistency in quantity, variety in placement.
- Do not perfect individual bases. Nobody looks at one base in an army. They see thirty at once, and the eye reads the overall pattern.
If you are painting a whole force, the same production-line thinking applies to the models themselves; our guide to batch painting an army covers the workflow.
A note on base size and decoration
Decorative basing does not change the base diameter, which is what matters for gameplay. It can, however, change the effective footprint if you add elements that overhang the rim, and it can change the model's height. If you play at organised events, keep decoration within the base edge. Our guide to base sizes and how to measure them covers the dimensional side.
If you are also planning to magnetise for transport, do the basing first and the magnet afterwards, working entirely on the underside. Heavy stone or resin bases add weight that a base magnet has to hold, so it is worth testing before committing an army to a scheme.
Frequently asked questions
What is the fastest good-looking base scheme?
Texture paste, one brown base coat, one pale drybrush, two tufts, dark rim. Roughly five minutes of active work per base and it looks entirely respectable.
Do I need to base a model I am only displaying?
Display models arguably benefit more, because they are viewed closely and at leisure. A well-composed base is a substantial part of what makes a display piece work.
Can I rebase old models?
Yes, though it can be fiddly. Models glued to their bases usually need careful cutting or soaking to remove. If the model is painted, protect the paintwork and accept that some touching up will be needed.
How do I stop static grass falling off?
Apply PVA thinly, press the grass down gently once applied, and seal it afterwards with a spray of dilute PVA or matt varnish. Tufts avoid the problem entirely, which is why most people move to them.
New to painting altogether? Start with our guide to painting your first miniature, then come back to basing when the model itself is done.
Independent guide published by Blubbercove Ltd/WarSplay. This article is not affiliated with, sponsored by, endorsed by, authorised by or licensed by Games Workshop Limited. Warhammer 40,000 is a trade mark of Games Workshop Limited.