Powered Armoured Paint: The Lazy Persons Guide to painting Scenic Bases

It's holiday time, and for Varchilde that means more hobby time, and of course that means some more posts. So as all my readers have been good little Venturers this year, you get words and pictures and not coal!

I've started work on my Carcharodons Astra Space Marine project in earnest. As I've mentioned in previous posts I want to build and paint an army that is both fluffy and effective on the table top. According to the Forge World Imperial Armour books, part of the Space Sharks strategy in the Badab Wars was to sabotage the huge power generators which provided the energy for Badab Prime's planetary defence systems, thus rendering the planet helpless.  I've decided to theme my army around one of the strike forces sent to infiltrate and destroy the generators.

Rather than the usual texture paint and dry brush approach for basing (as used on my Imperial Guard and Dark Eldar), I've had my eye on the GW Sector Mechanicus scenic bases. These have a loads of lovely detail, but I could see them being a pain to paint with models attached; so I've painted the bases first!

60mm base: perfect for Dreadnoughts

One of the reasons I started this blog was to have a place to capture some of my painting schemes so I've got them to refer to in the future (and other people might find them useful as well)! So here is the Lazy Person's Guide to painting Scenic Bases.

1) Spray the bases (still on the sprues) Chaos Black

2) Give the bases a heavy overbrush of Leadbelcher. They should look like this:

Stage 1 done!

3) Paint some of the panels and details in Warplock Bronze; 2 or 3 thin coats should be sufficient

4) Pick out some other panels and details in Hashut Copper; again 2 or 3 thin coats will be required.

5) Apply a generous wash of Agrax Earthshade (aka Liquid Talent). You can wipe off some of the excess from the flat panels to avoid pooling.

6) Once the Argrax is dry apply a wash of Gloss Nuln Oil. Again, wipe off excess where required.

Nearly there!

7) Wait for the washes to dry, then stipple on Typhus Corrosion technical paint in places. This gives a great rusty effect.

Regular maintenance and cleaning has not been conducted! 

8) When the rust effect is dry, carefully remove the bases from the sprue with snippers.

9) Give the sides of the bases a coat of Abaddon/Chaos Black.

That's it; all done and it's very quick! I painted a full box of bases (52 in total) in a few hours over a couple of sessions and I'm very pleased with them.

Selection of 32mm bases

And some 40mm bases as well!

Next up is to get some models built and painted to mount on these bases. I'm intending to write another post before Christmas, and I've got something pretty cool to share; as always, thanks for taking the time to read the post and see you soon dear Venturers!