How to paint lava bases: cracks, glow and basalt

To paint a lava base, paint the lava brightest where it's hottest: pale yellow in the cracks and channels, orange around them, and deep red at the edges and against the rocks. Then keep the rock dark, charcoal with grey edge highlights, and glaze orange onto the rock faces nearest the lava so they seem to glow. Below is our own lava field display base from every side, the order to paint it in, a paint list with swaps from two makers, and how to roll lava cracks with a texture roller.

Time

Two sittings, plus drying time

Level

Beginner to intermediate

Tools

Brushes are enough; an airbrush makes the blends quicker

Bits

Basalt Columns and Rock Clump

This base was painted in our Perth studio, but we didn't write down the exact pots used on it, so this isn't a "what we used" list. The method follows what you can see in the photos, and the paints are one way to get the look with colours that are easy to find, from The Army Painter and Vallejo. The colour dots are a guide only: paint looks different on every screen.

What makes painted lava look hot?

Real lava glows according to its temperature: the hottest rock is yellow to nearly white, it cools through orange to dull red, and the coolest crust goes black. Painted lava looks right when it follows the same order. Three rules do most of the work:

• Brightest in the middle of the flow. Yellow and pale yellow go in the cracks, channels and the centre of a pool, where the lava is hottest; orange surrounds them; red goes at the edges, where it cools.
• Dark against bright. Lava only looks bright next to something dark. Keep the rock charcoal, and the lava will seem to shine by comparison.
• Light spills onto what's near it. The faces of rock that look down into the lava catch an orange tint, strongest right at the lava and fading upwards. Painters call this object source lighting.

How to paint a lava base, step by step

1. Build the base and leave room for the lava

   Plan where the lava goes before you glue anything. On our base the basalt columns rise in a stepped group along the back and one side, and a few rocks stand on their own in an open pool across the front, so most of the front half is flat lava. Superglue the columns first, then the rocks, and work a little texture paste round the foot of the columns so they look rooted. Keep the lava area itself smooth: a flat surface takes blends best.

   For more on dry-fitting and stacking the columns, see how to base a dwarf on basalt columns.

   

2. Prime the whole base black

   Prime everything black, rocks and lava area together. Black fills the gaps between columns with shadow before any colour goes on, which suits basalt. Two light coats of spray or airbrush primer beat one heavy one.

   

3. Paint the lava area white

   Yellow is a weak, see-through colour, and over black it looks green and dull. Paint the whole lava area with two thin coats of Matt White, carefully up to the foot of every rock. With an airbrush, spray the white straight down onto the lava so the rock sides stay black.

4. Cover the lava with yellow

   Paint Daemonic Yellow over all the white. This is the colour of the hottest lava, and every later colour goes on round it, so be generous: two or three thin coats until it's smooth and strong.

5. Add orange, leaving yellow channels

   Decide where the hot channels run. On our base they branch across the pool like cracks, running between the rocks and out towards the rim. Paint Lava Orange over the rest of the lava, leaving a band of yellow along each channel. Feather the edge of the orange so it fades into the yellow rather than stopping at a line: work while the paint is wet, or build it up in thin glazes.

6. Darken the edges to red

   Now cool the edges. Paint Pure Red round the outer edge of the pool, along the rim and in a ring round the foot of each rock, again feathered into the orange. Push the very darkest spots, right where lava meets rock, a step further with Dragon Red. On our base you can see this most clearly round the rocks in the pool and along the front rim.

7. Paint the hottest veins

   With a fine brush, run thin lines of yellow mixed with a little white down the middle of each yellow channel, then a finer line of near-white in the brightest stretches. Wobbly, branching lines look more natural than straight ones; let them split and taper out. These veins are what sell the effect on our base, so take your time over them.

8. Paint the rock dark

   Touch up any yellow or orange that strayed onto the rocks with Matt Black. Then drybrush the columns with Uniform Grey, lightly, so they stay charcoal. Wash a little Dark Tone into the joints if the drybrush went too far. Finish with a careful edge highlight of Ash Grey along the top rims of the columns, the edges furthest from the lava. The drybrushing method is covered step by step in how to drybrush rocks.

   

   

9. Glaze the glow onto the rock

   Thin Lava Orange with water, or a glaze medium, until it's barely tinted, and paint it onto the rock faces that look down at the lava, strongest at the bottom and fading out partway up. Build it in two or three passes rather than one heavy coat. With an airbrush, spray it from low down, from the lava's side only, so the tops and the back faces stay grey. On our base the lower faces of the columns turn orange-brown where they meet the pool, and the rocks standing in the lava are a warm red-brown all over, as if they're heating through.

10. Paint the rim and varnish

    Paint the rim Matt Black, two thin coats, holding the brush flat against the side of the base. A black rim frames the glow, as on our base. Seal everything with matt varnish. If you want the lava to look molten and wet, you can add a gloss varnish over the lava only, but test it on a spare piece first: shine can hide the blends from some angles.

    

Paints for a lava base, with Vallejo swaps

Any bright yellow, orange and red will work, as long as they step from light to dark. The table gives one way to do it in two widely sold ranges; the swaps are close, not exact, so try them on a spare base first.

For the basalt-grey look in other paint ranges, see the basalt paint table.

How do you make lava cracks with a texture roller?

For a crusted lava flow, where black plates of cooled rock float on glowing cracks, roll the crust instead of sculpting it. Our Cracked Earth roller presses a pattern of irregular plates into clay or putty; the 28mm roller makes plates about 3–7 mm across, and a 10mm and 15mm version makes smaller ones.

1. Roll the crust in air-dry clay or putty, cut it to the base and glue it down (the putty choices are compared in which putty to use with a texture roller).
2. Once cured, prime black, then paint white, yellow and orange right across it, as for the pool above. Let the colour run down into the cracks.
3. Paint the tops of the plates black with the side of a brush held flat, so the colour stays only in the cracks. Leave a thin orange line along the edge of each plate, as if it's still hot.
4. Drybrush the plates very lightly with a dark grey, and add the near-white veins only in the widest cracks.

For flames and fire breaking out of the ground, our Hellscape pack adds sculpted fire, braziers and brimstone. Paint flames the same way as lava: yellow at the root, orange through the middle, red at the tips.

Do you need an airbrush to paint lava?

No. Everything above can be done with a brush: work the yellow, orange and red while they're wet, or build each blend in thin glazes. An airbrush makes two jobs faster, though: smooth blends across a big pool, and the soft glow on the rock, sprayed from low down on the lava's side. If you have one, use it for those two steps and the brush for the veins and the rock.

How do you photograph a glowing lava base?

Bright lava fools a phone camera into darkening everything else, so the rock turns into a black blob. Tap on the stone, not the lava, to set the exposure, and use soft, even light. More on lighting and backdrops in how to photograph 28mm miniatures.

Common problems and quick fixes

• The yellow looks green or patchy: it's over black or grey. Paint white underneath first, then several thin coats of yellow.
• The lava looks flat, like orange paint: there isn't enough range. Push the channels brighter with near-white veins, and the edges darker with red.
• Hard lines between colours: blend while the paint is wet, or glaze over the join with the lighter colour thinned right down.
• The glow looks like orange paint on the rock: it's too strong or too high. Keep it thin, strongest at the bottom, and only on the faces that look at the lava.
• The rock looks grey and chalky: the drybrush went too far. Wash it back with a black or dark shade and edge-highlight only the top rims.