How to Base Miniatures: Texture, Tufts and a Unified Army Look

Basing is finishing the disc the model stands on. It takes ten minutes per model and it is the cheapest way to make a collection look like a painted army rather than a set of painted models, because the bases are the one element every model in the force shares.

This guide covers the basing methods in order of effort, how to paint and finish texture, what to do with the rim, and how to keep an army consistent — including armies you started years apart.

Why does basing matter more than it looks?

Because it is the only visual element repeated on every model. Ten Space Marines with different armour highlights still read as a squad; ten Space Marines with three different base treatments read as three squads.

It also does something no amount of highlighting can: it puts the model somewhere. A figure on a bare black disc is a game piece. The same figure on cracked earth with a tuft of dry grass is a soldier on a battlefield.

And it is forgiving. Basing is texture, drybrushing and glue — the most beginner-friendly work in the hobby, on the part of the model that most improves the impression of the whole.

What are the basing methods, easiest first?

Texture paint

A thick paste applied straight from the pot with an old brush or a sculpting tool. Dries as sand, gravel, mud or cracked earth depending on the product. One step, no glue, no mess, and genuinely good results.

This is the right default for a first army.

Sand and glue

Brush PVA over the base, dip it in a tub of sand or fine gravel, tap off the excess, and let it dry. Cheap, endlessly variable, and you can mix grades of grit for a more natural look. Seal with thinned PVA once dry so nothing sheds.

Cork and rubble

Break cork sheet into irregular chunks and glue them down as rock outcrops, then fill around them with sand or texture paste. This is how you get height and drama, and it is what makes a centrepiece model's base interesting.

Sculpted and themed bases

Modelling putty, plasticard for paving and hull plate, cast resin scenic bases, or bought basing kits. The most control and the most work. Best kept for characters.

How do you paint and finish a textured base?

Whatever the texture, the finishing sequence is the same:

1. Let the texture cure completely. Texture paint especially — it looks dry long before the inside is.
2. Basecoat the texture in a dark earth or grey tone. Skip this if you used a coloured texture paint you are happy with.
3. Wash it with a brown or grey shade so the recesses between grains go dark.
4. Drybrush with a lighter version of the base colour, then a very light pass with a near-bone tone on the highest grains. This is what makes texture read as stone rather than as paste.
5. Paint the rim — see below.
6. Add scatter: tufts, grass, small stones, the occasional detail.
7. Seal it if you used loose material.

The drybrush step is the one people skip, and it is the one that does most of the work.

What should you do with the base rim?

Pick one and apply it to every model you own.

• Black — neutral, recedes, makes the model pop. The default and hard to fault.
• Matched to the texture — earth-coloured rims, so the base reads as a slice of ground. Looks natural, slightly less crisp on a gaming table.
• A faction colour — matches the army, reads as deliberate, and is popular for tournament armies.

Paint the rim last and paint it cleanly — a neat rim makes an average base look finished. If you find rim edges hard to keep tidy, paint the rim before adding scatter and touch it up afterwards.

How do you add tufts, grass and snow?

Scatter is the finishing touch, and the rule is asymmetry.

• Tufts — self-adhesive clumps of static grass. Place one to three per infantry base, never centred, never evenly spaced. Push down firmly and add a spot of PVA under the edge.
• Static grass — apply PVA in irregular patches and sprinkle. More natural coverage than tufts, more mess.
• Snow — a snow-effect paste or bicarbonate mixed with PVA, applied thickly in drifts against raised edges and thinly elsewhere. Snow catches on the windward side of things, not uniformly.
• Small stones and skulls — a couple per base, sparingly. Resist the urge to fill the base.

The most common scatter mistake is symmetry: one tuft dead centre, or four spaced evenly. Nature clumps.

How do you keep an army's bases consistent?

Decide the recipe once, write it down, and stick to it for years. A base recipe is three or four lines:

> Texture: cracked-earth paste. Base: dark brown. Wash: brown shade. Drybrush: light stone, then bone on the tips. Rim: black. Scatter: two dry tufts, off-centre.

Then two practical habits:

• Base in batches. Do the texture on twenty bases at once, wash all twenty, drybrush all twenty. It takes barely longer than doing five and keeps them identical.
• Record the recipe somewhere you will find it. In the app, a paint scheme records the colours a unit is painted with, and models can be assigned to it — which is exactly the problem of coming back to a half-finished army eight months later and not remembering the drybrush tone.

Matching an old army: if you are extending a force you based years ago, take one finished model, put it beside you, and match the new bases to it directly rather than to your memory of the recipe.

Basing themes by army

A base ties the model to a place, so pick one that suits the force:

• Astra Militarum, Death Guard, Orks — mud, ash, and battlefield rubble. Broken concrete and shell holes suit them.
• Space Marines — extremely flexible; cracked earth and rubble is the default, and works on any planet.
• Necrons — sand and dust for a tomb world, or dark tiled stone for the interior of one.
• Tyranids — organic: dark soil, chitinous growths, or the wet gloss of digested ground.
• Aeldari — clean stone, alien flora, or the pale sand of a crone world.
• T'au — desert sand and hex-plate industrial flooring both fit the aesthetic.
• Adeptus Custodes — polished palace stone, not mud.

Paints to use

Astrogranite Debris · Citadel Colour Technical

Agrellan Earth · Citadel Colour Technical

Agrax Earthshade · Citadel Colour Shade

Terminatus Stone · Citadel Colour Dry

Abaddon Black · Citadel Colour Base

What are the most common basing mistakes?

• Leaving bases bare black. The single biggest missed opportunity in the hobby.
• Skipping the drybrush. Texture without a highlight looks like paste.
• Symmetrical scatter. One tuft in the middle, or evenly spaced tufts, reads as decoration rather than terrain.
• Overcrowding. Skulls, stones, grass and a broken sword on a 32mm base is clutter.
• A messy rim. It frames everything; keep it clean.
• Changing recipe halfway through the army. Write it down.
• Basing before painting the model. Texture and scatter make the model harder to hold and easy to damage. Base last, or base the rim early and add scatter at the end.

Frequently asked questions

Should I base before or after painting the miniature?

After, generally. It is easier to paint a model that has no fragile tufts on it, and easier to keep basing material out of your paint. The exception is elaborate scenic bases, which are often painted separately before the model is attached.

What is the best glue for basing materials?

PVA (white glue) for sand, grass and tufts — it dries clear and slightly flexible. Superglue for cork, resin details and anything heavy.

How do I stop sand shedding off my bases?

Seal it once dry with PVA thinned about one part glue to three parts water, brushed over the whole base. It soaks in and locks the grains without changing the texture.

What colour should base rims be?

Black is the safest and most common. Whatever you choose, make it the same on every model in the army.

Are bases part of an army's paint scheme for tournaments?

Consistent basing is one of the things painting scores look at, and it is usually the easiest points to pick up. It also tends to be the difference between "painted" and "fully painted" in event terms.

Can I rebase an old army to match a new recipe?

Yes, and it is often worth it. Either replace the base entirely, or build the new texture over the old one — the second is far quicker and, once drybrushed, indistinguishable.

What comes next

One step left. A finished, based model that is going to be handled, boxed and gamed with needs protecting: varnishing.