How to paint alien blue sand bases.

Making contrasting bases so your miniatures pop.

When it came to basing my freshly painting ladybug Nids I wanted a base that was quick, easy and didn’t take attention away from the model. It also needed to fit into my philosophy that models should read well on the table top. With that in mind I turned to the trusty colour wheel.

When looking for colours that contrast each other the easiest thing to do is take a look at the colour wheel. Look at the opposite side from the primary colour of your scheme. My Tyranids are red so across from that you have green and blue. Green, although very retro, isn’t the look I’m going for so blue it is. Mix this with a light sandy texture and you have yourself an alien desert world. Below is a the list of colours I used.

Step by step Guide

First place your basing material of choice, I use Vallejo Earth Texture paste. I have the Dark earth colour but its going to be painted so the warmer brown colour doesn’t matter here. Depending on what you use drying times may vary but make sure it is totally dry. Drybrushing over even slightly wet texture paint runs the risk of pulling it up from the base.

To tie the darkest areas into the model a base of Eshin Grey was used. This will be darkened down into the blue spectrum with the next step.

Next add a thick later of Gryph -charger grey contrast paint. This deep grey blue colour puts some shadow into the low areas and shifts the colour pallet towards the blue spectrum. Leave this to dry fully as you don’t want the next highlight stage to get toned down by them mixing together.

A heavy drybrush of Hoeth blue will be used to pick out all the raised areas brining them firmly into the blue colour pallet.

That’s it, simple and contrasting basing idea for anyone with a red colour scheme. going forward I’m on the hunt for some nice alien foliage, maybe some blue or purple scrub grass. I’ll post an update if I find anything good.