Video summary
In this tutorial from Hobby Cheating, host Vince V demonstrates how to create versatile summer floral bases using cork, rocks, and new plant kits provided by Gamers Grass. The process begins with tearing up pieces of cork to establish a foundational height for miniatures, followed by the application of various ground covers like sand, grit, or small rocks glued down with super glue. To unify these materials visually, Vince sprays the entire surface with two layers of brown paint without priming first, relying on the porous nature of the cork and rocks to absorb the color effectively. A heavy wash is then applied to deepen shadows in crevices between stones, followed by a light dry brush using a lighter brown-gray tone to highlight textures before moving into more advanced coloring techniques.
To achieve a realistic earthy appearance that avoids looking artificial, Vince employs an interesting trick involving complementary red and green pigments. By layering these strong colors over one another in a messy, stippling motion, the raw pigments balance each other out to create natural tones containing yellow and brown hues reminiscent of real soil. Once this base color is established, the builder starts adding vegetation from the ground up, beginning with tufts that simulate shrubs and grasses. Vince recommends mixing different types of plants—such as swampy browns for a late-summer or early-fall feel versus bright yellows and greens for spring—and scattering them randomly to mimic organic growth patterns where water might naturally gather or mud would show through in the wild.
The final stages involve placing tiny, highly detailed flowers that come perfectly scaled with the surrounding grasses and shrubs, ensuring they overlap slightly to hide any remaining cork edges while creating a dense, natural landscape. Grass tufts are then used to fill gaps and cover corners, with specific choices made for each season's theme; dead brown infused grasses are selected for the autumn base, while fresh green varieties define the summer version. A final touch of dry brushing is applied using a bright green-gray paint to add sun-catch highlights across all plant elements without removing too much pigment, creating subtle speckles of light and contrast that enhance depth. Throughout the process, Vince emphasizes leaving two flat spots on the base for miniature feet while blacking out the rim off-camera, resulting in finished bases perfect for fantasy figures walking through natural summer fields or woods.
Read the full video transcript
Hello everybody and welcome to another
hobby cheating video. This week it's
time to make some fun summer floral
bases. Let's get into it. The strict
technommancer that is Vincy V.
>> Let us get to the technique and learn
it. Vincy V.
>> I love making bases. I just It's really
fun to sort of craft a little tiny world
for your figs to live in. This week I
wanted to make something a little more
summertime, a little more floral. And so
we're going to use some really exciting
new stuff that Gamers Grass sent me. Um
some new flower and grass kits. And
we're going to make uh some bases from
beginning to end that would be perfect
uh for any miniature you want in a more
natural surrounding. So let's head over
to the desk and let's get building. All
right, we're going to make a couple
different versions. I want to make one
that looks a little more um I don't
know, follyy and one that looks a little
more midsummer. Whatever. You'll see
when we get there. But the PL we start
in the same place for both which is some
cork. So I get out some cork pieces, you
know, kind of tear it up. We're just
going to make sure that it fits in a
nice way. Now oftentimes cork can look
quite fake when it's highly exposed.
When we're doing floral summary bases,
we can worry a lot less because we're
going to be able to hide a lot of that
and it's just going to give us good
verticality.
So I tear that in space, glue them down,
and then we're good to go. It's about
just creating some kind of height and
surface for our miniatures to stand on
amongst the uh all the flowers and
grasses and stuff like that we'll
eventually have. Okay, with that done,
we're then going to put down some actual
rocks just for like texture and ground
cover. So, to do this, I just lay down a
little bit of uh super glue and then
spread some rocks of various sizes all
over it. You can use sand, you can use
rocks, you can use a mix of and grit.
I'm doing this a little quicker and we
are going to cover a lot of this up, so
I'm not too worried about the ground
cover. This is something I think a lot
more about when I'm doing like a desert
base or a wasteland base or a Martian
base. But when we're going to lay down
another layer on top of it, frankly,
just get something down that looks like
earth. Any mix of dirt, paste, sand,
grit, rocks, you're fine. Okay, once
that's down, all that's glued in place
and dried, next up, I just go ahead and
want to turn it brown. I just pick a
nice brown color and I spray it brown.
Now, you might ask, "Vince, I didn't see
you prime it." You're exactly right. We
don't really need to. The cork is going
to absorb it fine. The rocks will absorb
the paint fine. Instead, I just do two
layers of the airbrush brown, and
frankly, it's going to be just fine
because we'll end up varnishing this at
the end anyway, so it'll all stick. Uh,
all right. Once that's done, I then
apply a heavy agax wash over the whole
thing. That lets me get those nice deep
dark uh recesses over all of the rocks
and grit and stuff like that. You do
want to pull that out. Make sure that's
there. Now, normally with cork, I talk
about how you really got to hide those
connection lines. I do that often with
like basing paste and sand. Here, we're
going to do it with the flowers,
grasses, and rocks. So, again, you can
adjust your your work to exactly what
you're doing. Once that wash is there
and all covered and dry, our next step
is a good dry brush. Uh dry brushing is
underrated, I think. Uh I just it's very
good technique, especially for bases. So
I pick a nice lighter brown. This is a
nice sort of uh brown gray from the uh
AM line from uh Monument, and give it a
nice light dry brush. It really will
pick up some of the texture here and the
rocks really well. Again, a lot of this
is going to be covered. We won't see
much of it, but I think it looks pretty
good even just with that light dry
brush. With those three simple steps,
we've got nice muddy bases or rocky
earthy bases. Now, if I was actually
doing it and going to stop here, I would
have needed to cover a lot more of the
cork connections and disguise the fact
that it's cork a lot better. So, you
could just, you know, add a little more
sand and glue and stuff like that and
stop here and have muddy bases. So, if
that's what you're going for, tada. But
of course, we're going to go farther.
All right, next up, we do need to add a
little bit of color to the earth. And
so, I'm going to do a fun trick with
some reds and greens. And I'm going to
apply some pigment. Now, one of the fun
things about the red pigments is they're
generally very strong. And the green
pigments are generally very strong. But
this neat thing happens when you put red
and green together. Why? They're
complimentary colors and even in raw
pigments will balance each other out.
So, what you see me doing here is
applying a lot of the red pigment,
getting some nice color around the base,
but then also I take some of the green,
and you'll see how I layer the green
over the red, and then the red over the
green, and what I get is this really
wonderful natural earthy color. Again,
the pigment really does uh bring the
whole earth to life. Um, it's just a
nice easy step. It doesn't take long.
It's very, it's fun and messy. um like
you just get a big old brush and you
just kind of stipple stab it around and
have a good time. It's not anything
specific. You don't need to have a a
controlled hand or anything, but you can
just have a lot of fun doing it. And the
color that when you mix the red and the
green pigment, what they create feels
very naturally earthy. It's got a little
bit of yellow and brown tones. It's
wonderful. So, having that on there,
we're now good to go to actually start
with our buildup of the nature. Now that
we've laid down the base, and the way to
think about this when you're building
these bases, you literally start from
the ground and build your way up, right?
So, the rocks and then the dirt and then
the the D all the way up, right? Okay.
So, now we're going to do some toughs.
And these are some new toughs from
Gamergass. They were nice enough to send
me. I really love these new ones because
they feel really natural in their color
pattern. Some of the past ones were a
little more cartoony or a little too
bright. These have a wonderful range of
colors as you can see here that I think
really does excellent as far as
capturing like different periods
throughout the year if you're in like a
temperate climate. So that's where I
live and it felt very realistic to me as
far as like the shrubs, the grasses,
things like that. So, they have both
some nice more desaturated brown infused
swampy tones as well as some of the
brighter, more spring bright yellowy
infused tones. I really like these. So,
we start by just mixing it up. Now, with
the toughs, I picked two for each and
we're going to just go ahead and mix
those throughout each base. I want one
to look a little, as I said, more
darker, more late in the year, kind of a
late summer, early fall kind of feel,
and one to be more like a spring, early
summer kind of deal. And so that's how
we'll build each of them up. Now the key
is you just want to intermingle them.
I'm picking different size toughs,
placing them around. I put them on the
edges. I put them in places where I
think water would naturally gather and
hence be very um beneficial to fauna
growing. So like in the cracks in
between rocks or at level changes, hide
them down and under to again hide some
of the cork and stuff like that and just
scatter them around. Really, you can
kind of go nuts here. The key is you can
leave a little bit of the earth showing
here or there. Like my backyard
certainly has some mud showing in it. I
wish it didn't, but it's just the way it
is. Especially with with uh with a bunch
of dogs and heavy tree cover, you just
get natural earth showing through
sometimes. So, you can leave a little
bit of that exposed. It only helps it
look more natural.
Um but you want to make sure that
they're intermingled. Don't like put all
of one thing on one side and a different
type in another. It should feel mixed
up. um that sort of organic nature is
very much how and and random nature is
how uh uh how things will feel more
credible. Okay. So, with those placed
down and you notice what basically what
I do is just put down a little glue,
apply the tuft and then force it down
with my um with my little uh uh pliers
or whatever. Okay. So, with that there,
now I wanted to move to some of the new
flowers. Um they also have a full new
set of flowers. And what's exciting
about this flower set here is that it
has tiny flowers. This is great. One,
the colors on these feel very good.
Again, there's like a really nice set of
of beautiful uh like bright pinks and
pastel color flowers, which all feel
very credible and real, but also the
tiny flowers are perfectly in scale.
It's wonderful. So, you can have those
those little tiny tuss and and and
things that grow in yards and in grass,
in the woods and stuff like that.
So you can do a mix to get the different
types of plants. I was really excited to
see all these tiny flowers and the new
colors they have on offer. So yet again,
I pick sort of two that I think fit the
uh more fall later in the year thing
better. So again, more of the crimson
reds and stuff like that. And then I
pick two that are much or three that are
much brighter yellows and bright colors
like that. And I get those over for the
spring base. I then just start placing
them around. Again, you can go nuts. The
key is to have these up against each
other. Fit them in between each other.
It helps hide some of the edge of the
tough line when they're constantly
overlapping.
So, just place them all around on both
bases. And make sure that I've got nice
uh interspersed now. Now, we've got all
four or five of these different elements
interacting. I want them all spread and
interspersed across the base, making for
something that feels very natural and
real. Okay. So, we've got all of those
flower toughs down. They're looking
good, but we need a little more. So, I
grab a little bit of grass toughs. Now,
these are older. These are also like old
gamers grass ones that I had, but um
same thing because we do want some
little toughs of grasses in here as
well. How you balance these three things
like more the sort of shrubby type
grass, more traditional ground cover
grass, and then flowers is up to you and
the base you want to make. You can have
different mixes. It'll all work fine.
But here I'm using it to cover the last
spaces, show some natural ground cover,
grass growth, and uh hide anything else
that I don't like the way it looks like
with the cork or stuff like that. So,
shoving it down into corners. Again, for
the uh fall base, I use more dead brown
infused grasses. For the spring base, I
use more green, bright, fresh summer
grasses. And I just spread them around
and make sure that they're, you know,
looking nice and and in there. Doing the
same trick every time. Put down a little
touch of the glue. Put it on there.
Squish it down nice and hard. Make sure
that all little parts the bottom of that
are really forced into the base. Like
really, really push to get it down in
there. Okay, with that done, there's
just one more little step we've got to
do. And that is a little bit of dry
brushing. I know that sounds weird, but
just trust me. I take my brush, I take a
little bit of uh a bright green gray.
So, this is some AK green gray. And I
just lightly dry brush and touch the
grasses to make sure they have that nice
sun-catched highlight on them. I want to
make sure that there's the same
transition in the grasses that we see in
a lot of the flowers and things like
that and on the earth. I then also touch
some of the flowers to just like very
lightly across some of the flowers and
the previous shrubs and grasses. I just
lightly move the brush over them. So I
don't fully work the paint off like I
normally would for a dry brush. I just
wipe it a little bit. Leave it fairly
pain heavy. Sort of like if you were
going to do a heavy dry brush, the
amount of paint you would leave on
there. And then I just lightly brush
over tippy tappy dippy dabby on all the
different little elements to create some
little speckles of light, some contrast,
some travel of value.
With that, uh, the base is done.
Obviously, I black rimmed the base off
of, uh, off camera. And here's how they
came out. Um, you can see I go ahead and
put Larry on here just to make sure
he'll fit nice. He fits perfectly right
where I want him right up on top there
so he can he can be walking through the
nice summer fields. But of course when
you're doing this it is important to say
you should always leave two flat spaces
for your miniature's feet to go. Um I
just knew where I wanted the model
stand. So I just kind of left that part
blank. But when you can always just mark
this out, put two little pins in there,
you know, something like that so that
your your model has a place to stand
when it's all done. But all in all, I
think these bases came out pretty nice
and they'd be great for something like
Sylvan or anything that you want to have
a more natural uh you know, summertime
feel or like they're in nature or in the
woods, anything like that. So, uh I hope
you enjoyed this little basing tutorial
and showed you a couple different types
of bases. You can use these same tricks
and toughs and all that to make, you
know, all sorts of different things,
spring, summer, winter, fall. We'll do
some uh come back in the future. We're
going to do some winter basing. So, uh
we're going to get back into snow as
sadly winter comes upon us is probably
when I'll turn to do that. But if you
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[Music]