Here are the steps to making this base.
1) Cut out a hole for the water. I drill an outline of holes in the base to make it easier to cut. Once cut, I put angled cuts around the edge so that it sloped downwards.
2) Cut out a piece of balsa wood to form a floor of the water pool.
3) Mix up some green stuff and fill in the pool. I basically rolled it into a snake and outlined the bottom of the hole, then squished the balsa wood onto the bottom. Then using color shapers, smoothed the green stuff in the hole to sloping edges.
4) With the leftover green stuff, I created a couple mushrooms. I just roll bits into cones, then stick a piece of brass rod into the bottom of the mushroom cap, then use color shapers and smooth out the fingerprint lines from the green stuff. [insert time while green stuff dries]
5) Cover base with white glue and lay down a layer of fine sand. Squish it down real good, then tap away excess. [insert more drying time]
6) Once dried, the sand was base coated with Battlefield Brown, then a heavy drybrush of Beast Hide, then a light drybrush of Rucksack Tan. I also painted the side of the pool Cygnar Blue Highlight to represent the outward facing water, and did a light drybrush of Wurm Green on the sand where the pool forms to give it a mossy sort of look.
7) I picked out a couple sufficiently rock-shaped pieces of bark from my basing bits and base coated them Bastion Grey. Then I white glued them to the base, shaded with a controlled wash of Armor Wash, and did highlights with drybrushing of Trollblood Highlight, and then lightly with Underbelly Blue.
8) Next I filled in the water. To do this, I mixed up a small amount of EnviroTex Lite. It's a 2-part resin mix that makes great simulated water. I added just a very tiny touch of Turquoise Ink. They key here is adding very very very tiny amounts at a time and mixing to get a sense of the opacity before adding more. Then I carefully poured it into the pond basin, using a small wooden stick to spread it to the appropriate places. I left it for about 10 minutes (enough time to update this entry) and then exhaled gently onto it to remove the bubbles. [again, insert more drying time, for the last time]
9) At this point I departed a bit from my usual techniques and did a thin red ink wash on the sand of the base to give it a slightly more earthy tone. In hindsight, I should have started with Bloodstone probably.
10) I white glued down a bit of simulated moss I've had for a while. I got this stuff from the model trains section of some hobby store long ago. I "drybrushed" this with Ember Orange to give it a more fall look. This stuff is pretty soft and delicate, so I had to just pat it down rather than the typical vigorous drybrushing technique. I gave it an extra and lighter pat down with Cygnus Yellow.
11) I white glued down some green flock to simulate moss. Mainly I did this so that when I pin the Gnarlhorn to the base, there won't be an unsightly gap between his feet and the sand.
12) I made painted the mushrooms. I started with a base coat of Skorne Red, then two-brush blended Murderous Magenta, then Beaten Purple. Then I used Trollblood Base to paint some spots and the stems. Then a simple matter of pinning them to the base.
13) I painted the edge of the base black to tidy it up.
And there you have it... 13 "simple" steps later and bam! The only real concern I have about this base is the purple mushrooms might create a bad visual dynamic for the Gnarlhorn once he's on it. We'll see. From just holding it up in front of him it doesn't seem too bad. I'm waiting until tomorrow though since I'm going to give it a final look over with Lance before sealing and pinning him to the base. Important tip here, if you use water effects, such as EnviroTex, DO NOT seal with matte coat over it. It will totally ruin the effect. I discovered this the hard way when I did the Totem Hunter.
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