How to do grey bases

When I started my current incarnation of Necrons I wasn't too familiar or even fond of texture paints and so I used the old school method of using sand. Now I get people complimenting my Necron bases and asking me how I achieved this effect, so I thought I would go through how I do my bases in this post today.

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Materials used in this tutorial:

• Sand
• Basing Grit
• Wood Glue

Paints used in this tutorial:

• Game Colour Black (Vallejo)
• Model Colour Black (Vallejo)
• Lahmian Medium (Citadel)
• Agrax Earthshade (Citadel)
• Administratum Grey (Citadel)
• Dawnstown (Citadel)
• Rakarth Flesh (Citadel)

Step 1. Mix the Sand and Basing Grit together in a tub. I tend to keep a big tub of premixed sand/basing grit for whenever I need to base my miniatures.

Step 2. Liberally apply a layer of Wood Glue to the top of the base and dip the base into your sand/grit mixture. Tap the base over the tub to shake off any excess sand/grit. It is important to note I do not water down the wood glue, this is because the thicker the glue to more solid it sticks the mixture to the base. Leave this for 24 hours to dry.

Step 3. Apply a 7:2:1 ratio mix of Agrax Earthshade, Lahmian Medium and Game Colour Black thickly to the base. I specifically use Game Colour Black in this mixture as it is harder wearing than Model Colour Black or Abaddon Black and is perfect for basing, and the satin finish will be counteracted by the Lahmian Medium in the mix. Repeat this step twice if necessary to get a nice, thick layer in between the grains of sand. Leave this to dry fully before moving on to the next step.

Step 4. Heavily drybrush the base with Administratum Grey.

Step 5. Drybrush the base with Dawnstown. This layer should not be drybrushed as heavily as the Administratum Grey was in the previous step.

Step 6. Apply one final, light drybrush with Rakarth Flesh.

Step 7. Before the final step, you should take this time to apply any other basing effects you want on the base and varnish spray the model (if using). In this example I used static grass, modelling snow and basing tufts.


Step 8. Paint the rim of the base using Model Colour Black to clean up the excess drybrushing. Realistically you can use whatever colour you want here but I use Model Colour Black as I think it compliments the base well and the matt finish looks nicer than the satin finish of Model Colour Black.

Finished base on a Necron Overlord

- D J Driver