You don't have to hate your broccoli

For all the fans of Dark Sword and even Reaper miniatures, working with the so called broccoli bases is a common occurrence. 

Most of the time, I use a razor saw to cut them away, and pin the figure to a different base.  However, this is not always practical.  The feet might be too fragile or small for pinning, or the texture of the original base is important to keep.

Never fear, brave hobbyists!  It does not take much to bend those broccoli bases to your will.

I used to take sculpey pieces and glue those around the base, filling in gaps with glue and gravel.

Now that I have bark, oxide paste and other tools, this process will be much easier!

As usual, the pieces of bark are held in place with the use of oxide paste and some glue.

The oxide paste fills in the gaps that the pieces of bark might leave.

I can also add some branches if I want, just as I have done on some of the Bark and branch bases that have been profiled here many times recently.

This straw like material is something I have been adding to my bases a great deal lately.  It started with my Wild West Exodus bases, but that has worked very well to simulate a variety of scrubs or tall grasses, depending on the scale of the figure.

After cutting out a tuft of the straw, I take the bundle and stick that into a dot of super glue (sometimes even set into oxide paste).

Almost ready to go!  Just some rocks and ballast...

And voila!  Broccoli base is now covered.  The overall footprint of the figure is still the same, since the original metal went all the way to the edges of the plastic base.

I have another post coming with a few more figures that I did at the same time!  Stay tuned...