The Poor (and lazy) man's way to base HeroClix figures for Heroscape:
O.K. I'm lazy. The thought of rebasing all of my Heroscape Supers does not really appeal to me. I'd rather spend my time playing! Besides, I don't want to rip old figures off of bases just to use the bases and I'm not interested in obtaining bases that are close enough and spend my evening glueing. You guys that have done this make it look great! Me, looking for shortcuts here....
This technique is extremely simple. Honestly, it only took me a couple of hours to do my entire collection. I will admit that he finished product is a little bit rough. If you look closely you will see the edges of the tape on the base. But as far as I'm concerned I don't even notice it during play and neither has anyone else. If you do it in an assembly line fashion it goes even faster.
So here's my lazy way....
First up, separate the top base from the bottom without slicing off your finger.
I've been keeping the bottom dials. Who knows, maybe I'll come up with an idea on what to use them for someday. Round glyphs perhaps?
The main problem is these bases will not fit on the 'Scape ladders. The shorter side tabs fit but those pesky longer tabs are in the way.
The solution is to use a piece of 100 grit sandpaper and 20 - 30 seconds of elbow grease. Place the figures base on the sandpaper and rub around in a circular motion, applying a constant, slight pressure on the base. Of course this makes a mess, so do this someplace that the plastic dust can easily be cleaned up and doesn't cause any health concerns. (I did mine on my kitchen counter
)
You really have to be careful doing this. You can always file away the plastic but you cannot put it back on. Also, if you apply too much pressure on one side it will be thinner than the other side. What you are looking to do is shown in this photo. Nice, even side tabs of roughly the same length.
I also found it helps just to keep a 'Scape ladder nearby and as you sand the base check how it fits now and then. That way you don't sand off too much.
Once this is done dust off the excess black plastic dust with a paintbrush. Then, taking ordinary masking tape, cover the holes on the HerosClix base. Let the tape overhang the sides of the base. I covered both the bigger hole as well as the two smaller notches in the back.
Here's a couple of figures with the tape on them.
Next take an xacto knife with a new, sharp blade and carefully trim around the base staying just slightly inside of the edge of the base.
Remove the excess.
Here's a finished, taped figure.
Next comes the paint. I use acrylic, Mars black. Winsor & Newton makes the best paint. It's thick out of the tube and covers well.
Turn the figure over.
Paint the underside of the tape.
By doing this it covers the adhesive of the tape so dust and who knows what other crap doesn't stick to your figures underside (insert crude joke here _____). Leave them on their sides so that the air can get to them and they can dry. If you are doing several figures at a time the first one will probably be dry by the time you finish the last one. If not give them a little extra time to dry.
The last step is to paint the top of the base. Paint everything, tape base, lines, numbers, etc.
Here's Plastic Man drying.
I just put everything on a paper towel to dry.
Last thing, I did try to glue some fine grey rock flocking onto the bases. That completely covered the tape and looked great. However once stuck onto a ladder the flocking was ripped off. Perhaps a soft flocking material would work but I have not taken the time yet to experiment.
Hope some of you find this helpful!
Grishnakh
To give you a better idea what the bases look like during game play I'll present a series of photos.
One more thing, I took a pair of toenail clippers and carefully clipped off the slide part of the clear plastic stand on all of my flying figures. You can see that on Superman in the above photo. Looks better with that gone in my opinion!
O.K. I'm lazy. The thought of rebasing all of my Heroscape Supers does not really appeal to me. I'd rather spend my time playing! Besides, I don't want to rip old figures off of bases just to use the bases and I'm not interested in obtaining bases that are close enough and spend my evening glueing. You guys that have done this make it look great! Me, looking for shortcuts here....
This technique is extremely simple. Honestly, it only took me a couple of hours to do my entire collection. I will admit that he finished product is a little bit rough. If you look closely you will see the edges of the tape on the base. But as far as I'm concerned I don't even notice it during play and neither has anyone else. If you do it in an assembly line fashion it goes even faster.
So here's my lazy way....
First up, separate the top base from the bottom without slicing off your finger.
I've been keeping the bottom dials. Who knows, maybe I'll come up with an idea on what to use them for someday. Round glyphs perhaps?
The main problem is these bases will not fit on the 'Scape ladders. The shorter side tabs fit but those pesky longer tabs are in the way.
The solution is to use a piece of 100 grit sandpaper and 20 - 30 seconds of elbow grease. Place the figures base on the sandpaper and rub around in a circular motion, applying a constant, slight pressure on the base. Of course this makes a mess, so do this someplace that the plastic dust can easily be cleaned up and doesn't cause any health concerns. (I did mine on my kitchen counter
)
You really have to be careful doing this. You can always file away the plastic but you cannot put it back on. Also, if you apply too much pressure on one side it will be thinner than the other side. What you are looking to do is shown in this photo. Nice, even side tabs of roughly the same length.
I also found it helps just to keep a 'Scape ladder nearby and as you sand the base check how it fits now and then. That way you don't sand off too much.
Once this is done dust off the excess black plastic dust with a paintbrush. Then, taking ordinary masking tape, cover the holes on the HerosClix base. Let the tape overhang the sides of the base. I covered both the bigger hole as well as the two smaller notches in the back.
Here's a couple of figures with the tape on them.
Next take an xacto knife with a new, sharp blade and carefully trim around the base staying just slightly inside of the edge of the base.
Remove the excess.
Here's a finished, taped figure.
Next comes the paint. I use acrylic, Mars black. Winsor & Newton makes the best paint. It's thick out of the tube and covers well.
Turn the figure over.
Paint the underside of the tape.
By doing this it covers the adhesive of the tape so dust and who knows what other crap doesn't stick to your figures underside (insert crude joke here _____). Leave them on their sides so that the air can get to them and they can dry. If you are doing several figures at a time the first one will probably be dry by the time you finish the last one. If not give them a little extra time to dry.
The last step is to paint the top of the base. Paint everything, tape base, lines, numbers, etc.
Here's Plastic Man drying.
I just put everything on a paper towel to dry.
Last thing, I did try to glue some fine grey rock flocking onto the bases. That completely covered the tape and looked great. However once stuck onto a ladder the flocking was ripped off. Perhaps a soft flocking material would work but I have not taken the time yet to experiment.
Hope some of you find this helpful!
Grishnakh
To give you a better idea what the bases look like during game play I'll present a series of photos.
One more thing, I took a pair of toenail clippers and carefully clipped off the slide part of the clear plastic stand on all of my flying figures. You can see that on Superman in the above photo. Looks better with that gone in my opinion!
