Friday, April 15, 2011

On the Bench: Dragon Forge Broken Wasteland Bases (Product Review)

One of the first things that I noticed about the bases was the quality of the casting and the type of resin used for them. There are a lot of companies that are doing resin bases, and not all of them are of the same level of quality as what Dragon Forge provided. I like that they use a higher quality resin and this goes a long way to justify the $1.00 per base cost.

When looking at the selection of bases available, I decided to go with the Broken Wasteland series. The reason I selected these was that I liked the look of the grainy desert areas when contrasted with the cracked tile sections of each base. I also selected them as I am painting the bases first and deciding what to mount on them later. I do like the Lost Empires series, but may save them for a future project. Also, the selection of square bases is much smaller and the ones available just are not as interesting or impressive as those offered by Back-2-Base-IX or Microart Studios.

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I began the process of preparing the base by cleaning the small amount of flash on the bases. After I cleaned them, I gave each base a wash with warm water and a drop of dish soap. Once the bases were dry, I gave them a coat of white primer (Army Painter brand) and allowed them to dry overnight.

To start the process of painting them, I applied a diluted coat of Snakebite Brown to the gravel areas of the bases. After the layer dried, I applied another layer to the same areas to assure that I had a reasonable amount of coverage. While the one section was drying, I also applied a coat of Desert Brown to the skull on the one base.
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The next layer was to the cracked tile. I used a thinned layer of Desert Sand which was applied in two coats to make sure I had covered all of the white primer.
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With the base coating finished, I applied a thinned wash of GW Sepia to the bases (excluding the skull on the one base). Once the wash dried, I went back with a slightly thicker wash of Sepia that was applied to the deeper sections of each base and to spots that were bleeding the base coat.
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Once the washes were dry, I applied the first layer of paint to the cracked tile sections of the base. I used a 50/50 mix of Desert Sand and Bleached Bone that was thinned. Next, I applied a layer another layer of the same mix with a little more Bleach Bone added to it. This was followed by another layer that was an additional thinning of prior mix with Bleached Bone.
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I continued the process of highlighting the cracked areas by using a thinned layer of Bleached Bone. With each additional layer, I added Dead White and thinner to the mix.
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When it came to the sandy sections of each base, I started with a drybrush of Snakebite Brown. This was followed by a drybrush of Vomit Brown. I finished with a soft drybrush of Bleached Bone.
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The skull on the one base was painted using a modified version of the approach I use for my skeletons. I gave the model a thinned wash of Sepia, followed by a wash of Devan Mud in the deeper sections of the skull. Once the washes were dry, I layered it with Desert Brown that was mixed with Bleached Bone and Skull White.
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When it came to the rim of the base, I used a couple of thinned layers of Khemri Brown.
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The last step was to add a small clump of static grass to each base. I decided to do this to add a little contrast to the painted colors.
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In conclusion, my overall opinion of Dragon Forge’s Broken Wasteland series of resin bases is very high. The quality of resin in casting is well worth the $1.00 per base price. I also found the assortment of bases diverse enough to make each base feel unique while still keeping with the overall theme of the series. I also liked that the bases were designed such that I could add a little bit of static grass to make the bases standout a bit more.

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