Sharpies and the Art of Basepainting

[ConnorSB]

Ok, I'll post pictures soon, but here's the deal.

I have a bunch of the DND minis, and they look pretty good. I use them in my DND game, not for the minis game itself, and I'm not really a big collector, so I don't mind altering them. Anyway, I have 3 men at arms, and I always confused my players because I wouldn't ever specify which man at arms I was taking about (in a combat).

Then I saw the recent article on the wizards site about painting your DND Mini's base, so that it looks like little tilestones. The last line caught my attention, something about "making your mini's stand out and be different."

*Ding!* a lightbulb goes on and I realize the best way to diferntiate the men at arms without screwing up thier paint jobs is to paint thier bases. but I dont have any paint.

So I used those new Metalic Sharpies, and now I have a man at arms with a gold base, one with silver, and one black. They all look pretty good, and since I sharpied pretty evenly, the base is, instead of being shiny black, now a nice shiny silver or gold.

Oh, and the sharpie dries really fast and doesnt come off. And I just tested it on the regular "warhammer" black bases that you can buy by the 20 or 40, and it works fine!

So, in conclusion:

Painting your bases with metalic sharpies is easy, fast, and looks good!

 

[Michael Morris]

A trick I used that's quicker than painting the bases and looks great is to go and get some model railroad grass and gravel then superglue it to the base.

 

[Painfully]

For a little more flavor you can give them each a name, and carefully write them in on either the tops or sides of the base. Numbers can work too, but you might wear out guards 1 and 2, and never use guards 5 and 6.