A Basic Forest Base in Ten Basic Steps

Things you may need;

Basing Products - such as ballast, gravel, static grass, flock, lichen.
Cheapo Superglue - the type you buy in bulk packs for $2 from the el-cheapo store.
Epoxy Putty - If you want that extra hold for your rocks.
Garden Rocks - a variety of small rocks that you usually find in sandy areas. Different shapes and sizes (or cork rocks).
PVA Glue - any wood or craft glue to stick the static grass on.
Paints - Dark Brown, Dark Green, Green, Light Green, Yellow, White, Dark Grey, Grey, Light Grey, White (If you only have a small selection of paints like myself, these can be mixed. You'll just need Black, White, Green, Yellow and Dark Brown).
Brushes - One crappy one for pva glue dabbing. One for regular painting (or just use the glue dabber brush). One for drybrushing small areas (I wouldn't use a massive drybrushing brush).
A Base - Yes this would be handy.

I don't know where those words came from, but I tells ya they are pretty damn handy.

Grab your base and miniature you plan on making the base for.
Choose a larger rock that your miniature can stand on nicely.

I forgot to do this step I'm about to tell you, my apologies. What you wanna do is make a mark of where the miniatures feet are gonna end up going on the rock. Then, if I plan on mossing up the rock, I will make two tiny little putty foot pads and place them where the miniatures feet will go. I'll indent them so the miniatures feet will glue on nice and well at the end. This way I can build up the moss around the putty footpads and the miniature will still have something nice to stand on once the base is done.
OR You could always glue the miniature on at this step and build around her. Up to you. I think I usually stick them on later. If they don't stick well I will use putty or basing products with strong superglue to help stick them down a bit better.

Back to Step one. Place the rock in the centre of the base. This is your main rock. Yay, you've completed step one. *gives you a gold star*

Step two is simple.

Grab a few of your other garden rocks or cork rocks and add them to the base.

You can pile them up.
You can scatter them about.
You can just have the one rock in the centre.

It's up to you. GO WILD!!

On to Step 3. Off you go *pats you on the bot-bot*

Step 3 is just as easy as Step 2 was.

Grab some kind of container, an ice cream container will suffice, just make sure it's empty before you use it or your ice cream will hurt your teeth.

Using your cheapo superglue, give the bottom of the base a generous coating.
Hold the base over the ice cream container and throw some ballast onto it. You can use gravel ballast, brown stone ballast or whatever you like to use as plain ground cover.
Shake excess off and move on to Step 4 honeychunks!!

Easy peasy!

Grab your el cheapo superglue again and drizzle some over parts of the tops of the rocks.

Careful now, this will end up being moss, so you want parts of the rocks to still be jutting out from underneath.

Also drizzle a little down some of the sides of the rocks, you can see what I mean in the next few pictures

Move along!!

You should have some cheapo superglue drizzled over your rocks. You didn't let it dry, did you?

You silly duffer!!
Go drizzle some again and come back *waits*

Ok, now grab your sand. For this I just use regular sand, like the type you find in a sandpit. Luckily my entire backyard is a sandpit!
Sand for everyone!! *throws sand about*

Pour the sand over the drizzled glue spots. Make sure its covered nicely then read on.

This step is a combination of the last two steps.

One coat of sand just isn't enough!

Drizzle more glue on the top of the sand you just placed on the rocks.
Cover the glue with more sand. Your moss will be nice and thick looking now... well, once it's painted it will. Shush you.

It should look like the picture to the left. But wait, there's more!

I have another picture for you below!!

Get this:

This picture is taken from a DIFFERENT ANGLE!!

How do you like them apples!?

The reason for this shot is so you can see the sand I placed down the side of the large rock.

Yes, there was a reason for the double photo step. Wowzers.

I amaze me. Move along...

Grab yer brushes it's painting time!!

Undercoat the rocks and moss.

I use Chaos Black on the rocks and Scorched Brown on the sand moss stuff. I think its scorched brown... I'm not sure. Either way its dark and its brown.

You could just undercoat the whole lot in dark brown. Up to you.

Drybrushing rocks time.

Wait for each layer to dry before moving to the next.

1. Drybrush rocks carefully with a dark grey

2. Drybrush slightly smaller/higher area of rocks with grey

3. Drybrush even smaller/higher area of rocks with pale grey

4. Drybrush tiny tips of the rocks with white or very, very pale grey

Onto Step 9 with you!

Drybrushing moss time.

Wait for each layer to dry before moving to the next.

1. Drybrush sand area with a dark green. Doesn't need to be too dry, if you find you cant see the dark green much, then leave more paint on the brush. Also don't be scared to leave a little brown.

2. Drybrush slightly smaller/higher area of moss with regular green

3. Drybrush even smaller/higher area of moss with green+yellow (make a nice blend)

4. Drybrush highest area of moss with a very, very pale green.

Almost finished!

Final Touches.

Add some dabs of PVA glue to the base where you would like to put grass down or any other things you like to throw on top of your bases.

Add the static grass. I actually pick my grass out of the bag in hunks and push small hunks of it onto the glue, letting them sit for a bit before shaking them off into the ice cream container.
Then I tap the bottom of the base to get off any excess before blowing along the base of the base. (from the underside up, if that makes sense) Anyway, just get the grass standing up nicely.

You just graduated from Zordana's basing school 101! Congratulations!
*gives you a plaque and brownie*
Go forth and make pretty bases to share with the world.
*wipes a tear from her eye*
Gosh... they really do grow up quickly, don't they... *sniff*

End Results are below!