How to Prepare Bases for an Entire Army Quickly and Cheaply

The Least Glamorous Work

Sometimes the most productive hobby days are the least glamorous. This is a couple hours in the afternoon worth of work—all the bases ready for the orcs and goblins.

The Technique

Using that basing material we made a couple days ago with my palette knife. Coming in, slopping it on.

Be firm but gentle. Don’t push it all the way to the base. That way you still get natural texture without obvious strokes of the knife in it.

The Speed Trick

I have a bucket of water that I’m putting my hand in to wipe off the old material. Then quickly clean off the side of the base.

If you take the time to use a paper towel for this, it’s going to take forever and waste paper towels. Just use your finger, wipe it off real fast, and you’re good to go.

The Results

I was able to do all of these in about two hours of work.

This brings our total up to about 250 bases. And we’ve only used half of this jar. Pretty sweet.

The Recipe

If you want to see how I made this stuff, here’s the quick version:

1. Old coffee grounds dried out
2. Cook it in the oven
3. Mix: 2 parts material, 2 parts spackle, 1 part paint

Thanks for watching. Tomorrow I start my goblin factory.