As of today, I now base my minis *before* painting them (sure, I might prime and zenith the minis separately, but they don’t get any colour on them until they’re on a prepped base). I did try painting the bases, then gluing the minis on top but I found that a) the superglue created white blooms on the paint and b) sometimes it stuck only to the paint, and the mini pulled off too easily.
Supergluing them onto a primed base works surprisingly well, but still allows me to paint over any globs of glue or discolouration, to help hid it.
I love these sci-fi bases (I think I just found them on Thingiverse, sliced them down and glued the “toppers” onto penny lead weights). A drybrush with uniform grey, then ash grey, and they’re done! If I’m feeling fancy I might paint in the odd hazard stripe or so.
This approach also means there’s no way I can get to the end of a paintjob and think “ah, stuff it, I’ll just whack it onto a plain base and worry about the rest later). As @lloyd would say “bases and faces, people. Bases and faces.”
