"Winter Wonderland" - How to Make a Snow Base

In the spring or warmer weather when the snow thaws in the woods

 the tracks of winter reappear on slender pedestals

 and the snow reveals in palimpsest old buried wanderings,

 struggles, scenes of death. Tales of winter

 brought to light again like time turned back upon itself.

Child of God - Cormac McCarthy

Hey guys and gals, welcome to another new year on The Art of Caesura!

I thought I would kick off the New Year with something a bit fun and different. In the spirit of a new year, I thought we would bring a model from the past and spruce it up for this wintery season. Welcome back Conan Wolf!

At the time, the wolf was the first mini that I painted with my new wet palette, and while I was happy with how he turned out, I had just given him a black "place-holder" base until I got around to figuring out a snow base. Well, the time has come! Buoyed by the confidence of doing all my Kharadron wave bases, a snow base now seemed like small potatoes. 

As I said before, my inspiration for the colour-scheme on this miniature was the wolf from the film 300. And like the scene in that film, I always intended to compliment his blue fur with a snowy scene. So lets get cracking!

I have read about various baking soda tricks to make snow, and was always a little tentative, lest I turn my carefully painted model into a kid's science experiment. When I heard really good things about Citadel's Valhallan Blizzard, I felt like this would be an easy place to start. 

The first step is to just completely paint the base normally until it is totally finished.

Testing the pose

After hot-glue-gunning a rock onto the base, PVAing sand around it, sealing and undercoating the whole thing (see my previous post for details on these steps) and adding a little skull for mood, I started the painting proper. I painted the rock a flat grey mixed from Abaddon Black and White Scar, and painted the ground (and skull) Steel Legion Drab. 

Where I branched out from the normal way I paint bases, is that I then washed the whole lot with Drakenhoff Nightshade to give it a wintry presence. I drybrushed the stone with a light grey and the ground (and skull) with Ushabti Bone. I even added a few tufts of my autumnal static grass. And it was at this stage that I glued the wolf back on. 

Now, let it snow, let it snow, let it snow!

There isn't really anything to this next step, I didn't have the specific "Citadel-branded Shoveling Tool" that they recommend so just used an old brush to shovel the Valhallan Blizzard "paint" onto the base. I must emphasize that you are not painting it on so much as placing it on and patting it down and spreading out the edges. Think about how snow really falls (heaped against the corners of the rock, but not too far under the overhang. Don't forget to gently add some on top of the grass, rock and skull.

For a final fun element I wanted to add some icicles hanging from the rock that the wolf is perched on. I watched a bunch of tutorials about how to make icicles, involving melting flying stands and all sorts of faff. 

I settled on a simple method of hot glue-gun! I wish I could have photographed this bit but it was quite time critical and I ended up melting my hobby mat a little, so you'll just have to listen carefully sans photos. I squeezed about a 2-3mm blob of glue out of the gun, pressed it on to the mat, as if I was just trying to glue the mat, and then slowly dragged it away while maybe squeezing a tiny tiny bit more glue out. This gave the desired effect of irregular cones of glue stuck to the mat.

They weren't too difficult to remove with a fingernail or knife and after a bit of trimming looked quite good. 

Sticking them to the underside of the rock with a bit of superglue had the added bonus of causing a bit of frosting which, in this situation, was perfect!

Now for the epic Art of Caesura mood-lighting...

And that's it! I've always admired snow bases; I think they can really elevate the overall look of an army. And hey, it turned out to be pretty easy!

Go forth and create your own blizzards, and I'll see you next week on The Art of Caesura!


Watching: The Hateful Eight - Tarantino 
Reading: Ways of Seeing - John Berger


Next Week:

Back into the Smog...