28mm Vietnam Project - Part 5 - Basing Texture

Well, I managed to find an hour to apply some basing texture.
Having mounted the figures onto 2pence pieces like so;

FoA Vietnam Figures Mounted on 2pence pieces before texture

Now this is where personal preference tends to come in. I know many painters who do their basing texture last. However I choose to apply it now and then undercoat the figures with black or white spray depending.

For these Force of Arms Vietnam 28mm figures I am sticking to my usual texturing medium, of Basetex paint. Its a paint with grit in it basically. Now it comes in varying size pots, from 200ml size, upto 0.5ltr size. I buy the big pots for a simple reason. They have better lids and they don't dry out. Also its handy stuff and lasts a long time if sealed.
But the smaller pots I found to be a false economy if you like it. So by all means grab a small pot to try, but if you like it, make sure you use that small pot up quick. Basetex paint is made by Colourparty, here in the UK.

Now the one thing you have to note, with basetex. The consistency does not always come out the same. I mean, i have bought two pots of brown. One has come out quite viscous and easily spatulared on. And a second pot from the same batch has come out, very runny.
Now this really isn't a problem, either leave the lid off the runny stuff for a few mins and watch the liquid evaporate, or do as i have done to sometimes extend a pots life, by adding some sand. Now in the brown, you will not notice it. The brown will take extra sand, and gravel and not discolour. Lighter colours of course, may tint slightly in shade.

Now, I like it quite thick, as I use a stiff long bristle cheap nylon brush to apply it. Working the brush like a spatula. Applying the first off around the feet/centre of the model and working outwards. The liquids surface tension is pretty good, but it will settle out, and so if you have a raised area, like the base of a figure, then you need to add a little more here, to compensate.

Once I have applied enough basetex and covered the base, you could leave it like that and let is set/dry. If you do, you get a nice caked mud type finish, with drying type cracks in the odd places. Don't worry the basetex, sets like concrete!  So it really is tough stuff.

Now my preference, is to add a pinch of model railway ballast or sand/fine grit mix, here and there to break up the texture and ensure i have some areas when i come to dry brush the model bas, will pick up paint and leave a nice effect.

By sprinkling the gravel onto the wet basetext paint the majority of the gravel will sink in a little and remain well glued down. I do however, rub each figure base with my thumb, to remove and weakly bonded gravel prior to base coating, to avoid you getting "bright spots" when some comes away after base coating, as Murphy's law states it will do in the most obvious place..

So here is what they look like once textured;

Basetex Paint by colour party as base texture medium

As you can see, there are some gravel pieces near the edges and these i tend to ping out, to ensure there are non over hanging. But even as yet unpainted, the bases look pretty reasonable.
So the next step with these will be give them each a rub over, and remove the loosely bonded bits. And glue on a single M79 weapon, that comes as a separate item on one of the figures. Oh and then try and sort the lost gun barrels on a couple. Now I probably should have fixed those earlier, before mounting, but my brain was saying.. " you will have more to hold onto after basing".. time will soon tell whether my brain was right or not.

So here is a close up for those who like detail..

Close up of the textured base.

So the next step, will be glue on the M79 and sort the snapped M16 barrels and then undercoat them. However these are not my only US figures by a long shot. See some of my earlier posts and I have realised some of those were not textured either. So it looks like I might be spending a further night or two prepping before I can get around to base coating.

But will keep you in touch with progress as it occurs.  So stay tuned for the next progress report..