I posted the start for painting my Legion of Everblight starter Battlegroup one year ago today. Needless to say, this follow on post which I promised back then is a bit overdue. To be fair, I did paint these bases months ago, I just have not put the time in to post the photos until now...
Step 1, prime the base Black.
Step 2, base coat with Scale75 Amarth Blue.
Step 3, wash the entire base with Citadel Drakenhof Nightshade. This wash starts to bring out the detail in the base which we are going to build on as we go.
Step 4, dry brush with Scale75 Hiril Blue.
Step 5, dry brush with P3 Frostbite.
Step 6, dry brush with Scale75 Purity White.
Step 7, paint the ring around the base with a mix of Scale75 Elandil Violet and Scale75 Decay Black. This mix is 5:1. I went this route because I didn't want the ring to be pure black and this mixture ties into the color a lot better, while still basically appearing black.
Step 8, add the ice effect. I combined a couple of steps in the photo below due to the fact that it was hard to see the ice effect by itself. For the ice effect itself, I used Ranger Clear Distress Crackle Paint. The ice effect was done by putting on a single pass of the crackle paint which covered the entire painted portion of the base. This product is self leveling, so you want to put on enough to cover everything, but not quite so much that it spills over the edges.
The crackle effect itself is achieved because the clear paint shrinks as it dries. One minor issue I had with my first attempt at using it was not using enough glue for the original basing material and as the crackle dried it essentially pulled the groundwork up from the base as a single piece.
After letting the crackle paint dry (overnight) I did a dry brush layer with P3 Frostbite followed by another pass with Scale75 Purity White.
Step 9, finishing touches. For this step I did a wash with Citadel Drakenhof Blue over the entire crackle layer and then did another layer of dry brush with P3 Frostbite and Scale75 Purity White.
I did this same process for all 5 of the bases from the Starter Battlegroup and I intend to repeat this for all of the bases for my entire army. I was blown away with how vibrant the bases turned out in the end and trust me, they pop a lot more in person once natural light starts to hit them.
The final step for these bases will be to use Secret Weapon Realistic Water and Crushed Glass to add a snow effect to each of the bases. However, I'm holding off on that part until I get each of the figures done.
