My paper mini basing project is done for now, and after some minor modifications to the trial ones and the creation of a bunch more, I’m pronouncing it a success!
The initial set of four I made last time were a little too dark and a little too shiny for my tastes, so I ended up simply dry-brushing on a couple of slightly brighter shades of matte-finish green. This made them more presentable, so I moved on to trying some other variations.
I made a few more sand-textured ones, but using a tan base coat to lighten things up. Some dabs of green and a thin black wash made these nicer than the first set, so I clear-mod-podged them and set them aside to dry.
Next I wanted to so some stone-like ones. In addition to an assortment of 1″-ish circles, I also cut four 2″ ones for large monsters and a single 3″ one for that young dragon to perch on. After gluing them down to thin wooden craft-store-assortment-bag discs of appropriate size, I gave them the standard base coat of Mod Podge mixed with black paint.
For some of the stone bases I coated them with a dark grey to start off with. Then I mixed a little of that grey with a light tan, to brighten it up and add a little subtle color, and dry-brushed that on. I finished with another dry-brushing, this time with just a hint of a lighter gray color.
For other stones I went for a sandstone treatment, starting with a fairly light brown, then dry-brushing with tan.
For both of these types I used my black wash on a couple of the samples, but I ended up liking the non-washed versions better so I left the rest alone. The photo below shows my collection in an almost-finished state – there was a little more green touch-up on the textured ones after this. The six on the bottom left had the wash applied, and I just felt it made them look a little blotchy, so I didn’t bother with the rest. (The ones with slits cut in them already are the original four I’d already test-fitted.)
Once everything was thoroughly dried, I took them out to the garage for a spray coating of matte-finish Krylon sealant. When that dried, I started cutting slits across the tops with an Exacto knife, using a straight edge for the larger ones. Finally, I plugged some minis into them (and no, I still haven’t sufficiently trimmed down the minis, but they’ll do as is for testing).
So my little storage container full of binder clips has been re-arranged to hold my new, more attractive, less annoying bases.
I’ll probably make a few more in the future, just to make sure I have sufficient quantity for any encounter and maybe to add a little more variety. I probably won’t use the dip-directly-in-sand method again, though once I get some finer grained sand and some other flocking materials I might make a try at some more forest/grassland style bases with a little lightly-sprinkled decoration instead of bulking up the whole thing with the grainy dollar store sand.