Step-by-Step Guide to Making Lava Bases
Created by ekxw
Is there anything more perfect to show how evil your troops are than a good lava base? Probably, but it's lava bases I'm doing today, so tough. 
Although improbable, lava bases are very nice to look at, and also easy (and dare I say fun?) to make. They are especially great for daemons, cold ones, or even dragons!
Materials Required:
- Two old paintbrushes. And by old, I mean old – there is a lot of dry brushing and rough surface working here, and one of them is for wood glue usage, so new brushes will die quickly. You have been warned.
- Wood Glue – the regular, white sort.
- Some kind of sand/stones – you can pick this up in any modelling shops, although I'd avoid GW based on their prices.
- The following Citadel paints (or equivalents):
- Chaos Black, Red Gore, Blood Red, Blazing Orange, Sunburst Yellow, and Skull White.
Step-by-Step Guide
1.) Work out where your lava will be – paint these areas white, and don't overdo it. Now make a mix with wood glue and water, using 50% of each. Apply the mix in the places the lava won't be going to cover and sprinkle the glue with the stones you will use to make the base.
Let the glue dry and then take the base and remove the excess stones from it by flicking it gently with your finger. You can use a sheet of paper and bend it in half to catch the excess, which you can reuse in another base should you wish.
Now make a roughly 1:1 mixture of black and white and dry brush this onto the rocks. Add more white to the mix and give another, lighter, dry brush. Continue adding more white to the mix and dry brushing the stones until they look okay.
It should look something like this (note the white patch where the lava is going):
2.) Paint the places where the lava will be going with red gore.
3.) Paint blood red over the red gore.
4.) Now, paint another layer of a mix of blood red and blazing orange, but do not go quite out to the edges of the area – leave a thin line of red gore.
5.) Apply blazing orange, again leaving some of the last step's paint showing at the edges.
6.) Almost finished. This time, paint a mixture of blazing orange + sunburst yellow. And yes, leave an edge of blazing orange.
7.) Paint the very centre with pure sunburst yellow.
8.) Paint some highlights with a mix of sunburst yellow and white, to make the lava look as if it is flowing.
Voila! One lovely lava base for your dastardly troops.
-ekxw |
