Flagstone Bases

In this tutorial I am going to show you how I make the flagstone bases for my miniatures, easy and cheap. All you need is your bases, thin sheet of XPS foam, PVA glue, ball pen and an old brush. In this example I am going to do the 25mm square bases but I use the same method for bases of all sizes and shapes.

BUILDING THE BASES

First thing you need to do is clean all of the bases from the excess flesh formed in the casting process. Since you are going to use bases as rulers for cutting the foam, you don't want to bump into unwanted lumps of plastic.

Turn you base upside down on the thin sheet of XPS foam, press it gently and run your scalpel along the edges of the base. Make sure that you have your blade approximately at the same angle as your base profile. Be careful not to damage the base by cutting into the plastic. Face the blade slightly outwards while you cut.

Once you cut out the foam, it is a good idea to check if it fits nicely with the base. Place it on the base and trim if necessary because you don't want the foam sticking out of the base. I like to do the bases in bulk, most often 20 pieces at a time.

Next step, etch the stone designs into the foam. I use the regular black ball pen for etching. There is a small chance that the ink mixes with paint so you don't want it to be blue or red.

After you are done with etching, it is time to glue the foam pieces onto the bases. Apply the PVA glue onto the base (make sure that you apply it all the way to the edges) and gently press the foam onto it. Use your finger to wipe of the excess glue from the sides of the base. In this step it is good idea to do one by one, because the glue will start to dry if you first apply it to all of the bases and then start attaching the foam. Before moving to the next step leave the bases to dry at least for an hour!

Next, we want to seal the foam an make it plasticky. Apply watered down PVA glue (about 60% glue, 40% water) on the foam part (both the top and the sides). Again use your finger to wipe of any excess glue from the sides of the bases.

Leave the bases over night for the glue to settle and dry and your flagstone bases are ready for painting! :) Note that it is really important to seal the foam prior gluing anything to your bases using superglue because otherwise the glue will eat through it.

Here are some examples of the miniatures based using this technique: