3mm basing and unit ID techniques and my storage solution.

1. The finished base effect

 As promised here is my basing technique for the Oddizial Osmy (which incidentally means Eighth Division in Polish) 1/600th models.  The first thing to realise is that these are small really small and even though they are cast in a hard white metal they lack heft so I am basing vehicles on UK 1p coins to add weight and make them easier to handle.  Yes I really did throw money at this project! Pennies are cheaper than washers and still easy to get hold of and of course they are a uniform size and thickness.  Out of some half remembered childhood memory of some old law about debasing coinage I always use the 'tails' side so as not to desecrate the Queen's face on the other side.

The first step is to create a smooth surface to place the model upon.  I use Milliput for this as it sticks to the coin really well.  It also has the advantage that as a two part epoxy putty it will harden even if wet so I can smooth it over using a damp finger tip.  I recommend a small dish of water for that rather than licking the finger as Milliput has an interesting after taste!  A piece about the size of a garden pea seems about right to cover a penny.  I smooth that all over the surface of the coin making sure to get all the way to the edge and even a little over.  I trim off the excess around the rim with a piece of card.  I just use whatever I have to hand.  Use cardboard to trim the edge as some of the wet Milliput will stay stuck to the card an harden rendering the card useless after a while so it has to be changed.  The idea is that the Milliput is only slightly higher than the rim of the coin and doesn't extend beyond the edge.  For larger vehicles I make to grooves to represent the track marks behind the AFV.  Once that is done put the base aside to harden.  The trick is to make up batches of about 20 - 30 bases at a time ready for the next stages.

2. Milliput layer and painting done

3. Side view showing the depth of Milliput used.

Next I paint the base, for this I use Vallejo Green Brown (Model Color 70.879) for this.  At some point I need to get this colour matched at a DIY store and get some acrylic house paint in the same shade as I do seem to use this for a lot scenic work.  I paint the Milliput surface and all around the rim of the coin.  This actually needs two steps as there is a small part masked by my finger tip where I hold the penny.  Painting in batches allows the first bases to have dried ready for me to paint the uncovered part by the time I have dome the last base.  I could tack the bases onto  a roof nail or similar I suppose but it would take longer to tack the base to a nail than going back to paint the masked bit of the edge.  A stripe of a dark brown (Vallejo Model Colour  70.872 Chocolate Brown in my case) in the track marks helps bring them out.  Again leave to dry before going to the next step.

4. A darker brown in the wheel ruts helps them to stand out.

The next thing to do is glue the vehicle to the painted base.  I do this after painting as a lot of clear glues dry to such a high gloss finish that it's hard to get paint to take on it.  Again, yes you guessed it, set aside to dry.

5. With vehicles glued on things are starting to come together

The last step is to texture the base.  There are a number of ways to do this.  Over the years I have settled on a couple of variations on the theme of sand and flock.   I apply some random areas of neat PVA glue to the base and sprinkle a fine sand over the base.  The sand sinks into the PVA and leaves a slightly raised area.  I knock off the loose sand and leave it for the PVA to dry.  I then do the same again on the bits that didn't get a sand covering but sprinkle flock onto those areas.  My flock isn't actually pure flock its a mix of a summer (or it might be spring) meadow flock (which has coloured bits to act as flowers) and a short static grass.  I sprinkle this by taking a pinch between my fingers and rubbing the finger tips together like sprinkling salt on a meal.  This seems to create a bit of a static charge which helps the grass part stand upright.  Once done I turn the base upside down and give the underside a sharp tap as a further incentive for the grass to stay upright.  And that, as the man said, is that!  It isn't necessary to cover every bit of the base in sand and flock as the base green-brown colour blends in really well.

6.  You can see how the sand sits 'proud' of the bases here.  

If you need to ID the models, which I do for Fistful of Tows, then a small patch of colour on the edge of the coin identifies the vehicle type and by default the regiment and a dot of contrasting colour (or two or three) shows which battalion they belong to.  For FFT models have to stay within a set cohesion distance of other members of their parent formation.  For Soviets the cohesion unit is the Battalion and for NATO it is Companies which requires a little more complexity using two colours of dot one for Battalion and one for company.  There is no real need to track formations beyond that.  I place this mark at the rear of the base as hopefully my troops will be advancing away from me!

7. Unit ID.  Green for T-72, left stripe is regiment 1 second is battalion 1 and 2. 

The last part of this post deals with storage.  I'm a big fan of the Really Useful Box range of plastic storage containers.  I use the 4 litre size with two of their hobby trays in each for most of my DBA armies.  However, those trays wouldn't do the job for these models as the spaces in each division of the tray would be too big and too deep to hold 3mm models securely, so I looked at using foam insert trays instead. 

8.  The foam trays in use.  

A quick trawl around Google lead me to a business called Just Lasered.  I contacted the owner via Face Book and explained what I needed and he designed the trays, checked back with me to be sure it was what I wanted and had them with me within a week!  Each tray has 80 x 2.1 cm diameter holes and  each tray has an offset so that by reversing the direction I place each one the holes do not line up.  Pennies are slightly over 2cm in diameter so the bases drop neatly into the hole with just enough space around so that when I lift the tray the model stays behind making it easy for my fat fingers to pick them up.  Better yet the trays are designed to fit exactly into the 4 litre Really Useful Box. I can get four 1.25cm thick trays plus a 1 cm topper into each box.  Great price too at £1.50 per tray, although postage hiked that up by another £4.50.  If I had ordered more at the same time the impact of postage would not have been so great I suppose.  So that is storage for 320 models in each 4 litre box.  More than enough for this project.