Forest Litter Basing Tutorial...

I've seen a lot of tutorial on how people do their forest type bases over the years.  I learned some basic things while working with Mike Butcher years ago on team army for Adepticon where we based the both of our factions the same.  I've expanded off of that over the years.  I'm currently doing a little basing and thought I would give out some of my thoughts on it.  Above you see pictured some of my basic ingredients for the initial part of the basing, the granular portion.  They consist of two types of HO Scale railroad ballast, the black sand and the white sand, then we have some pieces of slate, some fine crushed dolomite that is easily found in the wilds here in Wisconsin, some crushed pieces of slate, and the fake rocks in the lower right corner which is simply Apoxie Sculp smashed with a hammer.

Below are some of the grasses that I use on various projects from a variety of suppliers, which you can get in bulk far cheaper from model railroad companies that you can from war games suppliers.  Pictured are a green and dead grass colored static grass, clumps of static grass flock and what I like to call straw in middle and upper right.

For most of the static grass and the forest litter I will use super glues of which there are a variety.  The "Thin" with the pink label is what I use for the forest litter, it is super thin and flows like water, its also sometimes called "Fast".

CAUTION:  USE THIN IN ONLY A WELL VENTILATED AREA. AND WEAR EYE PROTECTION!!  

Yes the thin has a super hot formula and accelerent in it.  If it gets in your eye it will cure almost immediately.  If you want to glue your fingers together, this is the stuff.  

 Here you see a scrap of plasti-card with some granular flock that I glued down.

You can see its the same stuff that I used on a Viking and my Romans.

Below is what I use for my forest flock litter, Italian Seasoning.  Its from the bargain bin of your local grocery.   It has no powder in it, that is important.  You do not want powder.  Its essentially all dried kind of crushed leaves.  

Take a pinch of the seasoning, sprinkle in the places that you want for a nice random look.

Take the "Thin" and place drops over the seasoning you want to keep on the base.

Drips like water.....

When you have what you want stuck down, clean up the debris.  The Thin coats the leaves of the seasoning and reinforces the texture in addition to adhering it to the base. The side benefit of using this is if you put your miniatures in a sealed bin for storage, when you open that bin it will have a nice Italian smell.

Below you see what it looks like on a raw base.

Then add or before, add some rocks. My favorites are slate and fake.  Glue where you want.

Some finished painted examples below:

That's it for now.