Basing Texture Revelation!

I started off trying to do this hobby on the cheap using household kitchen ingredients, like shredded coconut instead of flock, but soon realised that bought texture looks a whole lot better than home-made! 

I started by flocking the bare base which did little to disguise the 'step' where the figures' bases met the cardboard. By lucky chance I was in a craft shop with my girls when I discovered coarse artists' gel. It's been my chosen texture ever since. A while ago I was in an art shop looking for holiday projects with the girls when I spied some pumice mortar. As I was running low on the coarse gel and this art shop didn't seem to have a similar product, I bought a tub of this stuff to see how I'd go. At around A$15 I thought it wasn't too outrageous a cost if it doesn't work.

I recently ran out of my coarse gel and thought I'd give the pumice mortar a go, and I'm glad I did! It really is terrific stuff. It's an acrylic resin with tiny chunks of pumice in it so it literally sets as hard as stone. It's a bit hard to work with out of the tub, but after a little experimentation, I found it works best if diluted slightly, which makes it much easier to spread evenly.

I also experimented with colour as it makes earth tones too dark for my taste if applied straight on to the dried pumice. I can't remember which blog it was, but I recall someone using a pale flesh base undercoat for terrain, so on my latest battalion I tried that, then applied a wash of earth tones that sunk into the gaps, leaving the lighter tones exposed. I think it works quite well!

Does anyone else have any top basing tips?

The end result; not too shabby at all!

As recommended by Johnny Rosbif!

The raw stuff; not very attractive, but comes up well in the end!