The integral base is visible before blending with sand and flock. Revell Germany WWII British Infantry, 1/72.
One of my pet peeves is trying to blend a heavy integral base into my preferred basing method. The majority of historical miniatures are cast with a thick base which rarely provides enough stability on its own. It does provide a large surface area for gluing, but often results in an unsightly lip on the finished base.
Lately I’ve been looking for ways to thin this base. For my WWII project I trimmed away the excess base, then ground away the depth with my Dremel. This was slow and messy work. I’m using a high-speed cutter bit in the Dremel and it seems that the soft metal has already dulled it, making the work even more of a chore.
With my 1812 miniatures I forgot about thinning until after I’d already painted eight miniatures. The Dremel was slow and messy. One small slip and the paintjob was ruined. In desperation I tried my razor-saw. I’d tried it before on the WWII miniatures with little success, but this time I stumbled upon a way to easily saw-off half a base depth.
When I paint I hot-glue two miniatures to a popsicle stick, then hot-glue that to a handle for painting. The miniatures stay there until painting is finished. I’d noticed that the Victrix miniatures were a real pain to pop-off the hot-glue. Normally metal miniatures come off easily, but not so with the plastic. After trying to saw the base off some painted miniatures without ruining my paint-job I thought that I could use the hot-glue as a vice. This way I wouldn’t have to handle the miniature and it would be held securely when sawing. The less something moves, the easier it is to saw.
It worked like a charm. The glue held while I sawed off the miniature. The finished edge was level and the bases will be much easier to blend into the base-work. Not only that, but it will be less of a struggle to get the miniatures off their painting stands after painting. I’ll just take the opportunity to thin the bases.
I’m looking forward to trying this with metal miniatures as well. I may need to score the bottom of the base so the hot-glue can do it’s job. Failing that, I can always use epoxy glue. After all, the part I’m gluing with be discarded, so it won’t matter that the glue is permanent.
Tyler
Tyler,
I had something similar to do with my 1/72 soldiers which also come with similar integral bases. I simply glued them to the bases I wanted and used some Pumice from Vallejo mixed with paint or pigments to build some ground on these bases and reduce visibility of my integral bases.
Then with a little statoc grass or flock you can conceal the joint completely.
Good job!
–
Mahon
http://www.ChestOfColors.com
I don’t know if it might help, but I always use white glue to stick my miniatures on cardboard or wood sticks to paint them. Sometimes, expecially with 15mm metals I have problems to to pull them off the glue once I’ve finished, but nothing an xacto knife cannot solve.
The largest metal miniatures sometimes come off… just add some glue.
In the past I used bi-adehesive tape, but wasn’t strong enough to hold even the 15mmm cavalry miniatures, so I started using white glue.
Great job.
Ciao, Vezio