While playing the various games of Firestorm Armada, I kept on looking at the bases that the ships are mounted to thinking they where very boring and plain. So I done a search and was inspired by a guy called Zbyněk Šibal who has his own blog called Erebi Miniatures, I think he is from the Czech Republic. Anyhow, his bases where very cool, so I decided to steal the bases, imitation is the best form of flattery they say and all that jazz. Anyhow if you go over to his blog you will find the pictures around July 2013 time. This is my copy (ignore my wonderful carrier).
My star effects are not that pounced tbh. But it's enough to get started and not be looking at boring clear plastic base. The red is basically the side of the ship you do not want to be near, esp for a Dindrenzi ship. I will explain how I done this, incase anyone else thinks this is really cool. First of all you need to get your bases into a clump. Tape the tops together and make sure you clean the bases (the bit that is in contact with the desk/table/whatever). I find a cloth with IPA on it works good or airbrush cleaner. Like thus...
What you can also see from here is that I have started with the stars. All you need to do with this is to have thin white paint, I used Vallejo Model Air White. Stick it in your airbrush and just "flick" the arm back bits at a time until it splatters like so... it's weird trying to make an airbrush splatter but this is the look you want. You can also use a paintbrush and draw the bristles back and let them go. Nat called this "flick painting"I believe, makes sense when you think about it. You get the basic idea... next is the colour of your nebulas.
This is just really faint line of the same white paint drawn in any random pattern you like. These bases are not going to be put back together (unless you want to?) so the pattern can be as weird as you like.
This is the "tarting up stage", for anyone who has ever seen a nebula/galaxy with their own eyes through a telescope (Orion's Sword or Andromeda are the common ones) then you know that this is wrong. As they actually look white/grey normally. Anyhow, this is where I copied the white paint stage just with Vallejo Model Air Blue and Vallejo Model Color Purple (the codes escape me right now).
A little close up of said procedure. Really easy and you get the idea. Then onto the fun part! This was actually the first time I used Ultimate Airbrush Thinners (despite having it for over a year). I am very very impressed with this stuff. Worked a treat with the Model Colour paint. :)
Nice easy step this one... completely cover the bastard in black paint! You might find that black primer is better but I used NATO Black from Vallejo's Model Air range. In hindsight, what I should of done was spray some light gray down just so I could see the purple/blue as it stands now I can not see it that well. Also at this stage, I sprayed some Satin varnish on the black to give it some kind of protection (after 24 hours so the paint had cured).
This is the final result, simple and a lot better than just plain plastic/acrylic, easy to do tbh. The nebula part might be abit harder to do with a hairystick, not sure how you'd do it tbh. Simple and effective, next thing I did was to mark a triangle off and spray Tamiya clear red onto it to make it come out like above. Simples...
PEACE!
Dazz
