The rocky road to creating a rock. Part 2

Rather than sitting here and tapping out (yes that is how I type!) a step by step on painting the base I've decided to try a more visual approach. The techniques used are a fairly straightforward combination of layered dry brushing and washes. As I said in my previous post I've taken a very organic approach to painting the base and the finished result is all about variations in balace between the colours I've picked and the paint application. First lets look at my colour palette for the base.

Base Colour:

Calthan Brown & Astronomican Grey mix

1st Highlight/Drybrush:

Base colour mix + Vallejo Grey Primer

Wash colours (in no specific order):

Blazing Orange

Vallejo Burnt Cadmium Red

Iyanden Darksun

2nd Highlight/Drybrush:

Base colour mix + Vallejo Grey Primer using increasingly lighter mixes than the 1st highlight

The entire base was painted with the base colour and then dry brushed all over with the 1st highlight colour. Thereafter the coloured washed and highlights are applied in various combinations. As usual I diluted my washes quite heavily and built up several layers of each.

Now lets look at how these colours and techniques look in combination on the base.

click image to enlarge

click image to enlarge

The rocky road to creating a rock. Part 1

I've decided to split this post into two parts with a follow up on painting the reworked base to follow very shortly. The process has developed in a very organic way with both the paint scheme and the base undergoing continual adjustment. So consider the picture below as something of a teaser for the state of the base at the time of posting.

I like to be able to sit back and consider my next move carefully before making it. In the case of my Dark Eldar diorama base I've been considering for over a year!

I'm very pleased with the monoliths and how the Sourge minis interact with them but I was less happy with how the overall piece sat on it's plinth. It's not that there was anything particularly wrong with it, it was just a bit boring. I came to the conclusion that the union between the base and the plynth needed to be more dramatic.

So I took a deep breath, steeled my nerves and reached for the superglue, cork and earth! 

I decided to have some of the ground surfaces on the base breaking out beyond the edges of the plinth. To do this I broke up a cork placemat (very cheap from IKEA) into small pieces and glued those into place with super glue gel. The broken cork gives a really great texture and, once the glue is set, it can be easily cut or carved into. I also added some more basing slate to match that already used. Once all the glue was fully set I went about filling up the gaps with some green stuff. The final touch was the addition of some garden soil sprinkled onto superglue (watch out for the fumes if you try this).

The resulting patchwork is a bit jarring to look at but that's easily fixed with the application of a base coat.

To paint the base I'm using lots of dry brushing and washes following the same sort of process I used to paint the monoliths. http://sproketsmallworld.blogspot.co.uk/2011/09/dark-eldar-diorama-painting-monoliths.html