15mm Wargaming for Fun and Sanity: Shadowbasing walkers and other vehicles for urban and rural

Shadow Basing for Vehicles

(Not SHADO vehicles or 1980's young ladies in tight Lycra outfits. Hang on, there's something wrong here---)

My previous post on vehicle basing has been my most popular post, accounting for a third of all visits. This is my second update. Pimp my Llurg's ride 5.7.14 features same basing but for rural.
The difference? A vehicle (particularly heavy) goes INTO the base rather than ON.

So I must have done something right, lets have another go at doing a Proper Job.

To clarify, CD's and clear plastic have a high refractive index, so covering with opaque No-More-Nails and thin paint still gives a higher refraction than a solid surface like ply. Plus, the base can be a full millimetre thinner. CD's and credit cards used for walkers below don't warp like ply will when cut this extreme and subjected to wet.

During this process I came up with a third method that works best for urban roads and small patches of water or potholes. Take 2 pieces of thin scrap plastic then "fill":
Shadow, use black ink and a very small amount of PVA (very messy process,takes ages to dry but goes avery interesting colour)
Pot hole, black paint
Puddle or small water feature, add blue paint of your choice.

For the last two you may want to put a layer of paint or card underneath. For the shadow, make sure you have patches.

This is raw first attempt, no cutting or touch-up:

Excuse the colours, I wanted high contrast rather than realism- it is SF, after all!

I have some Old Crow vehicles, matchbox and constructs that need re-basing. They were all originally done during my Hammers Slammers/Gruntz phase. Don't get me wrong, nothing wrong with these rules I just find Flying Lead and the trial Harder Than Steel fit my needs better. Please ignore the rest, as I'll use Brigades new stowage, pintel mounts and turret-riders to revamp them.

Here's the Before shot

I've rebased for urban. Thin scrap plastic from meat paackaging with layer of black paint each side, drybrush white. The force details will come soon, pay attention. I make bases big and will cut down when I'm ready. I did this lot just before I came up with the new method. Go figure.

I put some previews on the 15mm SF Facebook site hoping/asking for some feedback. Got none, yet when I asked about the laden weight of a mutant Star Goat (Irregular Miniatures) I got lots.

The constructs are part of my Ixx force. More on that later. They also feature at my Trouble at Mill VSF post, August13, that also features high in my posts. I had a hard job trying to hide the bases during photo's, which set the alarm bells ringing about the need to improve.

Before, the old way.
Baseless and proud.

New bases. This is fun and must be done when 'er in Doors is WELL out of the way. Carefully cut the CD in water to roughly the right size. You need to present the model repeatedly. As you van see, I relied on cutting notches where the model would cast a shadow. You'll be surprised how small you can go. Once cut, the base is covered with No-More-Nails and the model presented. The basing will shrink slightly and grip the model. When nearly dry I put a spot of medium superglue on each limb.

For smaller walkers a credit card does a good job.

At time of writing I haven't decided what to use these for. See above.

These robots is intended for urban, each base has CD scraps added to the mix. Once finished I scraped the shards to reveal the silvered surface to represent bare metal or sheet glass. This base works like camouflage and is very hard to photograph. I used the Critical Mass's masking,forget which one- naval blue underneath, various greys on top. I don't spray, all hobby or students range acrylics. My Payne's Grey has just dies after a couple of decades (or so, living in Dorchester-) of good service, the expence! All these bases are very easy to ignore in play and so far I haven't found any problems, my handling and storage isn't walker friendly.