Basing and Resourcefulness

Rather than actually finishing the painting of the Manticore, I chose to spend yesterday fiddling with the bases of the monster.  You might have noticed that I chose to use the plural form of the word.  I have mentioned that I was waffling over what system to use the model for and eventually decided that with a little bit of cunning, I could have my cake and eat it too.  This feels extra nice in lieu of the recent announcement of impending price gougin... I mean adjustment.

Obligatory magnets = miracles joke

To the right, you can see the 60mm round base for 40K.  It started life as your basic GF9 magnetic base.  Up close and basically naked, it's not the prettiest, but I plan to use some red or purple tinted water effects to fill some of the gaps.  That plus a little bit of scraping on the excess superglue and I'll really be in business.  I used tinted auto glass from a wreck that happened outside a friends house.  It's a very dark surface, which means I have to be conscientious of ensuring some sort of contrast in the lower parts of all the models.  In this case, it will end up being a few brighter coats of red on the claws of the monster.  The surface is also reflective, which gives it an otherworldly quality that I think will be excellent for a daemonic army.

To the left, you can see the standard Fantasy base that I use on all my Warriors models.  It's not the most complicated process, but having to drill into the marble can be a rather delicate extra wrinkle.  I ended up drilling three separate holes for each spot on the base.  Once the holes were finished, I sunk three quarter inch magnets into each hole.  It's enough attraction that I can turn the model upside down and wiggle it a little without it falling off.  I'm hoping that never turns into a victory condition in a game.  I added a couple pieces of glass in addition to the usual marble.  The original plan was to have a few shards on the model itself, but I've backtracked on that.  They're already glued down, so I'm going to roll with it as best as possible, rather than trying to re-drill the holes. 


So at this point, I'm back to actually painting models.  I need to finish the body, after which I can paint the alternate head, albeit in a much less ornate style.  The heavy detail will be reserved for the riders.  In summary, for the cost of the model, plus eight kitchen tiles and a dozen magnets, I can use the big guy in two game systems and three different ways.  I'm thrilled with the way he looks, but the cheapskate in me is happiest about that.