Basing miniatures with coffee grounds

Time needed: 1 hour

Dried coffee grounds make an excellent basing material for your miniatures. Here’s how I’ve used it as a gritty texture to my bases. While this is one way of doing it, you could also mix the grounds with PVA and apply as a thick spread like Armageddon Dust.

1. Dry your grounds

   I keep the week’s used grounds in a plastic tupperware on top of a radiator. I give it a shake once in a while until every last morsel is dry. You’ll notice the granules vary in size. If you have the inclination, you could sieve them into small and large pieces for different purposes.

2. Dunk your bases into the coffee grounds with PVA

   Dip your base or movement tray in a generous amount of PVA glue and dunk it in! Leave for a minute or two so the glue soaks up as much coffee as possible. If you like a tidy edge, now’s the time to scrape the sides with a knife. Or, you can leave them overflowing like I do for a wild and overgrown look.

3. Seal with watered down PVA

   To make sure it’s really stuck on, add an extra layer of watered down PVA. This helps seal any smaller grounds into the base. At this stage I also like to add my miniatures to the base so they dry as one homogeneous lump.

4. Add flock/static grass and other details

   Add any embellishments such as flock, static grass etc. You might want to drybrush a little, but I’ve found the coffee has enough variety that it doesn’t need it.