Modelling Technique: Paved Bases

For those who dont know, I've recently been getting into building walls in plaster for terrain and the game Confrontation by Rackham.

I have a growing undead force, and in an attempt to do the bases differently from all my other bases have been trying a paved effect to go with my walls...

This guide is designed for Square Bases, but I'm sure the techniques work on round bases (as I have done it!)

Firstly, clean up the base, file off tabs and so on.

Next up, I cover the entire base in Greenstuff. Style is of little importance, just make sure the entire top part of the base is covered.

Once happy with coverage, I take a tile and wet it down. Different to normal techniques, the tile needs to be clean and wet (as opposed to moist).
I press the base upside down onto the wet patch. Turning it 45 degrees each way to ensure smoothness of the Greenstuff.
Carefully lifting of the base (shouldn't stick with the wetness of the tile), we end up with a smooth top surface free of fingerprints and the top will be flat (mine isn't, but thats the effect I'm going for!)

Next take a sharp, wet knife, and run it along the edges, keeping the blade flush with the base's angle.

Take a moist sculpting tool and carefully score gentle lines in the Greenstuff. These will be guidelines for the Brickwork, so decide how big the blocks will be and positioning and so on.

I then scored more guidelines in showing the brickwork. Notice how bricks are laid in real life with each row 50% further along? not always for paved floorings but the effect looks better than a grid.

Next up, moist sculpting tool is dragged along the guidelines with a little more pressure, scoring a groove.
Once the end of a line is reached, you may find small raised patches of Greenstuff. these are either flattened into the base edge or into the ajoining brickwork carefully.
Either way, it is important not to have any bitz inside the grooves.

As I am going for a dark feeling to my undead, I carefully dragged a moist sculpting tool along for claw marks, pressed a wet skull into a brick for a mark and generally picked at the bricks for a wron effect.
photos of real cobble streets and paving slabs may help your inspiration. just remember to keep the grooves between bricks clear!

Once the greenstuff has been left overnight to dry properly, a pair of guide holes are drilled into the base and the figure pinned and glued in place, ready for undercoat!

Its a fair bit of work, but I find sculpting bricks one of the most relaxing techniques I have!
there is no reason why once dry, extra greenstuff put on certain bricks for an uneven effect, or shields / bones placed ontop or flock as moss and so on...