Marble effect base painting guide
In this tutorial we'll show you how we made this white marble effect for our Planetary Temple range of bases. We've used the 40mm size but this technique scales up really well, so don't be afraid to experiment.
These would look great as grand marble floors for a Thousand Sons Chaos Space Marine force or perhaps a lost Jedi temple for Star Wars Shatterpoint.
You will need:
- An airbrush
- Some old, dried out disposable wipes (we used airbrush cleaning wipes left out overnight after use)
- A bit of sponge
Colours we used:
- A black undercoat (we used cheap matt black car primer)
- A mix of off-black colours for the marble veins (we used Citadel Colour Eshin Grey, Sons of Horus Green, and Ironrach Skin)
- A mix of off-white colours for the main marble colour (we used Citadel Colour Ulthuan Grey and Vallejo Model Air White)
- A metallic colour for the constellation patterns (we used Citadel Colour Brass Scorpion, Retributor Armour and Nihilakh Oxide)
Step 1: Painting veins
Undercoat your bases black, then sponge on patches of your darker colours. This will eventually form the veins of your marble by peeking through the white overcoat, so it doesn't need to be neat.
We've used a greeny grey (Citadel Eshin Grey), a pale green (Citadel Sons of Horus) and a yellowy off-white (Citadel Ironrach Skin).
Step 2: Making your stencil
Take your dried-out disposable wipe and stretch the fibres apart until it resembles a cobweb. Depending on the quality/brand of your wipe, you might need to tease and cajole it quite a bit to get the desired effect.
We've found cheaper wipes are easier to pull apart, but end up being quite delicate and easy to destroy the cobweb look. High quality wipes are much sturdier and retain their look really well but you need to apply a lot of pressure to tease the fibres apart, so it's easy to accidentally apply too much pressure and tear your wipe apart.
When you've got your desired look, wrap the wipe over the base and twist it a few times to secure it. Some wipes will stay put, but others are a bit more springy so you can use tape, rubber bands or clamps to hold them in place.
This is essentially a stencil - the fibres will occlude the next layer of paint to create the veins of the marble. The bigger your holes, the smaller your veins.
Step 3: Paint it white
Using your airbrush, spray over the disposable wipe stencil with your off-white colour (we used Citadel Ulthuan Grey) and highlight some areas with pure white (we used Vallejo Game Air White).
Wait for it to dry and peel to reveal!
@wargamemodelbases Sweet sweet peels 😩👌 Cheers to @ArtisticMimic again for the inspo! You can find these Planetary Temple bases on our site wargamemodelbases.com #terrain #warhammer #craft #40k #painting #bases #peel ♬ 1901 - Phoenix
Step 4: Pick out the details
We've used a metallic colour to highlight the orbit patterns on the base (Citadel Brass Scorpion and Retributor Armour) with a touch of verdigris effect around the planets. This could be done with a watered-down cyan colour but we've used Citadel Nihilakh Oxide.
Black lines work quite nicely with coloured planets too, and you could even use gold in some of the veins to emulate royal marble.
Special thanks to ArtisticMimic on TikTok for the inspiration behind this guide! Follow us on Tiktok, Instagram and Facebook for more sneak peeks and work in progress from our painting bench.
Pick up your own Planetary Temple bases here and get experimenting!
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