Rebasing: A Guide for Bases and Stickers

[yodajunkie]

Just letting everyone know that my small single bases now have dye cut stickers. Also I found a place to make the peanut stickers dye cut, just can't afford it now. They are close to $250 for 100 sheets for each size. The cost is high because with the first order they charge a $99 set up fee to make the dyes. future orders of that size would run about $130 for 100 sheets. The place is onlinelabels.com if anyone is interested. Since I had the dyes made for the small single, anyone can now order that size without having to pay the set up fee. If you do order, be sure to get the gloss finish, the matte looks terrible. the size is 1.0625 inches round. I just found out they also have a 1.25 circle for the large single bases. if you figure the cost per label, for $130 you get 6300 small single stickers, that's just over $.02 per sticker,not bad really. you get 4800 stickers of the large single so about 2.7 cents each. the peanuts when i get them will be 4.3 cents each for small peanut(3000 stickers), and about 5.7 cents each for the large peanut(2300 stickers). Hope this helps. If anyone has more money than me, and can afford the extra $99 go ahead and contact them to get the dyes made for both peanut sizes, or if we could get a fund together we could all split the set up fee, and save everyone money. If we could find 10 people to put in $20 each, we would have enough to cover both set up fees. Then anyone could order either size for the $130. If anyone is interested in contributingemail me at yodajunkiedesigns@yahoo.com. I don't check here very often, so a pm may go unread for a while. Hope this helps.

[Xotli]

Being a member of the C3V, I have a buttload of C3V figures. However, I've rebased relatively few of them. I used to rebase figures pretty regularly, back in the day. However, since C3V started, I've only rebased 8 figures total. There's a few reasons for this:

1. Being in C3V takes a fair amount of time, and I just don't seem to get the time to rebase as much.
2. I never rebase Rackham (i.e. Confrontation and AT-43) figures, because their bases are so similar to Heroscape's anyway. And C3V has used a fair number of these figs.
3. I bought a few bases from YodaJunkie many moons ago, just to check them out, and I was very satisfied with them. But I soon ran out.

Well, I'm currently on sabbatical right now, which addresses #1, and so I figured it was time to take care of #3. Consequently, I just placed a fairly large order with YodaJunkie, and thought I'd report the results here.

First things first: My original YodaJunkie order had taken forever to fill. I was a bit worried about that, especially with a larger order, but I emailed him first to let him know it was coming and he let me know exactly when and how fast he'd be able to do it. He also sent me a PayPal invoice so we didn't have to go through eBay, which means you get a better price. I'm not sure if my price was only because of that, or also because I mentioned Heroscapers, or also because I was ordering a larger quantity, but I got 200 small singles, 14 large singles, 16 small doubles, and 15 large doubles for around $125, which I considered a pretty good deal. My package arrived about 8 days after I paid the invoice, which is pretty darned good, I'd say.

So I see some discussion about YodaJunkie's bases upthread, and there's some notes about him switching to die-cut stickers for single bases (only). Well, he's done so, and I promised him I'd pop in here to show some pics of the new stickers.

First we have the small singles. Here they are, both on the sheets, and attached to some bases:


As always, click for larger images. As you can see, there's a bit of a range in the colors, from a brighter green (right) to more of a brown with very little green (left). Not sure why this is ... maybe just because I got so many? From the standpoint of consistency, of course, this is a bad thing. But if you check your official Heroscape figures, you'll see some variety on the stickers too, so we have to offer points for authenticity. And it gives me some aesthetic choices: e.g. I could use the brighter stickers for basing darker colored figures, and the more muted ones for basing brightly colored figs, etc. So it doesn't particularly bug me. And, if you got a smaller order, you might not get any different colors at all.

Now, one difference (whether you consider it a downside or an advantage depends on your POV) with the die-cut stickers is that you have to put them on the bases yourself. Remember that with the old bases (and still with the existing double bases), YJ glues the stickers on himself. Personally, I like that better, just 'cause I'm practically anti-crafty, so anything that involves me getting something straight, or neat, or flat, is doomed to failure. But the good thing here is that the small single stickers are perfectly sized, so it's hard to mess them up. I did notice that the resin isn't perfectly flat on top, which is an artifact of the pouring method, so some of your bases will have stray bumps here and there, but you have to be really anal-retentive to get upset about that. But I mention it.

Of course the reason you might consider having to add the stickers yourself an advantage is if you like to cut out the feet before gluing the figure to the base. It's much easier to cut feet-shaped holes in the sticker before you apply it to the base (obviously). Personally, I don't do that, but whatever floats your boat.

Large singles look pretty much the same, sans the color variations (but, again, that might just be because I didn't get as many large singles):



I don't know if you can tell from the picture--you may be able to, if you zoom in enough--but the large single stickers are not quite as perfectly sized as the smalls. See how the front edge of the sticker doesn't quite reach the front edge of the base? The back edge of the sticker is flush against the back of the base, so it leaves a tiny little crescent of bare base. Now that I know, I'll just center the stickers a little more and it won't be so obvious, but it's something to note. (See, I told you I could screw up anything if you gave me a chance. )

The doubles are still done the old way, and there's plenty of pics of those in the thread here and there, so I didn't bother to shoot those. But don't forget that YJ is pretty much the only game in town for getting those peanut bases, which is the main reason I go to him in the first place.

Anyway, hope this has been helpful. Please don't hesitate to ask any question. You know, in case this post wasn't long enough.

[kpucblek]

I always have used Impact Miniatures' bases. Order the sticker separately.

Determine the exact spot where you're going to glue the foot to the base, then cut a hole in the sticker (less than the size of the foot). Then stick the sticker to the base. Then super glue the foot to the base through the hole you just cut in the sticker.

I've had great results and not had ONE pull up from the base.

[tcglkn]

That method has always worked for me, but I recently got lazier and have just been gluing to the sticker, taking the risk of having to re-glue later.

[Rocktroll]

Its not easy for me to find the recommended spray paint for the bases, Brown Satin from Testors I think it was, so I tried looking for something that would work when I was at home depo. I found a spray I thought would work, sprayed a sample on the paper they provide and when I got home I liked how it looked.



Went back a week later and could not remember for the life of me which of the 2000000 shades of brown they have was the correct one.... Wish I would have taken a picture of the spray can!!

[kpucblek]

Aargh! That's awful! Sorry man. But the one suggested (Krylon Fusion Satin Boots Brown) is available at Hobby Lobby. I had to do some searching, but I found it there.

[mac122]

Thanks for the update, Xotli.

I just ordered some peanut bases directly from Yodajunkie. You will get a discounted price ordering direct instead of through his eBay listings. Use the email address a few posts up.

[1Mmirg]

Originally Posted by mac122

Thanks for the update, Xotli.

I just ordered some peanut bases directly from Yodajunkie. You will get a discounted price ordering direct instead of through his eBay listings. Use the email address a few posts up.

Thanks for the heads-up about pricing, mac. And a big thanks to everyone in this thread helping out with more and more info. This is a great resource!

I've finally moved into rebasing and this thread has been invaluable.

--

Made an order with Yodajunkie last week and everything arrived, just as promised, with lightning speed. Now I just need to get some time to actually do some of the rebasing...

[mac122]

Received my order from YJ after a delay. He had misplaced my order. However, to make up for this, he sent me some extra single bases. This was the first I had seen of his new stickers. The quality is MUCH better than when I first ordered from him. The images for the stickers are sharper. The quality of the cutting is what stood out the most. The singles are die cut and the peanuts were much better than before. There are still some issues with roughness on the bases themselves, but they are still a good quality base.

[Porkins]

I'm contemplating ordering some of the brown bases from Tom at Impact. If Tom is around or anybody else can maybe comment: are those bases still spray painted? Or is the color now molded into the plastic?

@mac: are you still converted to gluing directly to the sticker? I'll have to try it...but the engineer in me resists! MUST...MAKE...STRUCTURALLY...SUPERIOR.

[mac122]

Originally Posted by Porkins

I'm contemplating ordering some of the brown bases from Tom at Impact. If Tom is around or anybody else can maybe comment: are those bases still spray painted? Or is the color now molded into the plastic?

@mac: are you still converted to gluing directly to the sticker? I'll have to try it...but the engineer in me resists! MUST...MAKE...STRUCTURALLY...SUPERIOR.

As far as I know, Tom is still spray painting them. I'm sure there would have been an announcement if he switched to brown plastic. I still paint my own.

I still glue directly to the sticker for most figures. If the figure has a good peg on the foot, like the Dust Tactics and Rackham, I'll drill a hole for extra support.

[Porkins]

@Tom: the Basing Supplies page on your website would be much easier to shop from if you updated the pictures and organized it a bit. For example: for the items that are stickers only, update with a picture of just stickers (currently it shows a sticker and base, which is confusing). Group 30 mm and 40 mm and Double-spaced together on the page. So maybe the page would look like:

30 mm green stickers --- 30 mm brown bases

On the next row:
30 mm superhero stickers --- 30 mm black bases --- 30 mm black bases + stickers

Then repeat for 40 mm and so on.