All fantasy should have a solid base in reality

I think I've mentioned it to anyone that ever brings the topic up that I've never based my figures. I used to settle for either painting the top of the metal stand to match the plastic base or to just paint it all grey. I always thought flock and sand looked terrible so I never used them and static grass was hard to come by back in the old days. 

Now that I'm trying to finish off my Imperial Guard army once and for all I thought I'd better start learning how. I've done a few urban bases for my infantry but they were nothing more than cutting a few lines into the base and painting them as slabs. The heavy weapons models are another challenge all together though.

I wanted to have them on the larger bases but for ease of wound recording I also wanted the 'loader' removable. Now I didn't have enough green stuff or milliput lying around so I thought I'd give the things lying around my house a try first. The worst that could happen is that I ruined a replaceable base  so it was worth a shot. I thought clay would be a bit too heavy and with it shrinking and needing fired I thought it best to go with the huge bag of plaster I had for repairing our walls.

Using a butter knife i layered on enough to bring the 'road' to the same height as the small base the loader was going to be on. I then cut a piece of sprue to length, cut out a drain, and placed it on the base before adding another layer of plaster to be the pavement. I then placed the small base and dug out the unneeded plaster underneath it. After the plaster started to dry I shaped the pavement using my GW modelling tool so that it looked like paving slabs.

I graveled it up leaving a space beside the kerb because, well because that's how the roads are round my way.

It was primed with Eshin Grey

I gave it another coat of Eshin Grey and then gave it a thinned down wash of GW black ink wixed with a little Agrax Earthshade.

I then drybrushed the base with Eshin Grey again, Codex Grey and Fortress Grey. I gave the paving stones and kerb a bit more paint than the road and gave it a final light brush of Skull White.

With my army just about matching this base colour I needed something to brighten it up a little. Some road markings might work so I threw some yellow paint in a line.

It doesn't look like much but not only am I hugely impressed with how it came out it looks great once you get the figures on it. Please ignore the mould lines on the Heavy Bolter though... I could have sworn I fixed that before it was painted!