Basing for ship miniatures

[RogerBW]

I’m working on some designs for cold war and modern warships, for 3D printing. My intention is to release them without charge, and perhaps to upload them to shapeways for those without printers of their own.

I’m looking at a figure scale of 1:6000, so an Osa missile boat will be around 6mm long. (A Nimitz carrier on this scale will be around 55mm, and given that the distance scale will be around 1:73000 I don’t want to overscale the figures more than I have to; they have to look plausible when doing close-up gun passes. I do intend to overscale missiles and aircraft to make them large enough to see.)

That part is no problem. But I’m wondering about bases. Obviously a 6mm mini is too small to handle on its own, and in other people’s games they’ve been mounted on card. I can easily enough print a thin base with a rough “sea” texture on it, as part of the overall mini. But is there a standard for the size of the card? What’s a minimum useful size for handling?

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[Mike]

Big enough to be able to apply a print out to the rear of the base, with the ships name on it?

[RogerBW]

That could also be 3d-printed on, though it would make setup more complex. I’ll certainly include a flat area for this purpose.

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[Mike]

What is the smallest label in practical terms? 3mm high by 8mm wide?

[Mr. Average]

I find that 1/4″ is the smallest practical dimension for a base label of any variety – that would be about 6.3mm for those not familiar with the Imperial System. Personally, I’d like the ships with no base – fiddly as that may be it would give more options: flotilla basing for destroyers, for example, or placement on a clear acrylic base instead of a solid one you have to paint. I’ve seen both of these done quite successfully.

[RogerBW]

That’s fair enough – I’ll certainly release them without base for anyone who wants to give that a go. But if they are mounted, would say ½” × 1″ be too fiddly?

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[Mr. Average]

That’s a very good size. I individually base 3mm scale vehicles at that size and it works fine on the table.

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