Base: The Final Frontier

Now when doing the hobby its generally doing large forces with units at the ready for potential lists that you end up with extras rip, roaring and ready to go covered in paint… just in case. The same can be true with the incidental single figure for tabletop play as either a PC/NPC. Well, what if you had the intent of just fiddling about and doing display painting? It doesn’t seem like a very sound idea to build up something as specific as a singular base and then just have it stand by, just in case, or is it?

Every model has a particular flavor to it and a level of appeal that manages to grasp out attention to accept of reject the offer of purchasing it from our FLGS or online retailer. In all of this there are particular genres/motifs that we can see and map out with Venn diagrams if we really put our heads to it. I like to think that there are are flavors that appeal to tastes allowing for better expression of what we imagine our figures experience. Basing is the small world (avoiding copyright of a wonderful game and an evil rat) where our figures might breathe, or for the abdead, where they shook off their mortal coils and joined the choir invisible. The fun of what we see beyond the figures gets literally grounded and with just a few millimeters making tabletop or shelf space come to life.

Having a few extra bits lying about can make this easier in order to excite the mind to potential occupants. “That’s just what I need!” is often what I think when fiddling around in browsing figures after some build time. As case in point is a present floor that I’m sculpting a bearskin rug and then saw one of Brother Vinni’s bunny hostesses lying down. I’ve ordered one and found that Deep Cuts had a wizard’s room set with all sorts of translucent bottles. I picked one of those up and I’m looking for a platter to put down and hope to find a creator for wine glasses/brandy snifters in the mass of Shapeways shops. It all starts from a place to feel real around a figure. The world is yours (mind the cane).