Modeling/Basing: Annyssa Ryvaal WIP (2)

So as promised here's part 2 of the Annyssa Series.  I really wanted to do something with her base.  So first things first, I removed her.  A little wiggling and some tugging with tools got her off of the base successfully.

Now with the model off of the base I took some cork material and broke it up around the edges enough to do two things.  One, I broke it enough to fit on the base and cover enough of it so that it would look like a massive stone slab as well as minimize how much I'd end up flocking.  The cork material or sheet that I bought I simply bought at my local Walmart in the office supply section.

The fact that in Warmachine/Hordes the volume of your miniatures is predetermined by base size is something that I actually like quite a lot.  I feel like it gives you freedom to model up poses as well as high and wings and just embellishments on your figure in general without sacrificing tactical advantages in line of sight.  Because of this I chose to add another level to the rock.  I felt it looked good for her to be a top some rocky snowy (more on the snowy in other posts) mountain looking down on her prey.

The next step was very simple.  I just wanted to get a good sense on how much of the cork material I would have to dig out since I had chosen to use the bracket under one of the stag's hoof.  So I put her side by side around the area where I wanted her to end up and just marked it with a permanent marker.

After the mark I just started digging with a sculpting tool and an old exact knife.  During this process I would try to fit her in the gap to see my progress until I was satisfied it would fit the bracket.

I went ahead and put her on there to make sure it was a good fit.  At this point I wonder if this is what people do when basing this way.  What do people do to hold the figure in place when doing the base first?  Is this a method?  Hit me up on some comments and let me know!

My next step was based on a tiny bit of experience working with the cork material.  I took some white glue, watered it down about 30% and spread it all over the cork.  The reason for this is that in the past, the cork has actually been able to absorb quite a bit of the paint leaving patches that needed retouching several times.  It's not hard to touch these patches up but in truth it was simply annoying as sometimes it would absorb enough to have me repaint 3 or 4 times.  I also added the glue to hopefully  help the material not crumble and fall apart later in it's life from being handled in the gaming table.

After the glue dried I went on to flock the edges that were not covered by the cork.  I may do something else with the edges as far as maybe adding snow etc... but for now I'd rather flock it in case I don't get to it right away.

My next step will be to paint the base so that I don't have to deal with the model being on there while I experiment on how to get some good looking rock effect on here.  I will be addressing that on another WIP for her.  More to come...