How to do Eldar ruins as a base design?

I'm looking for a way to picture the destroyed Eldar crone worlds or satellite realms of Commoragh in a base design that I'm possibly going to use on some of my newer DE and/or my new Craftworld project. The idea behind it is that the Eldar are hunting for ancient relics and forgotten tech in order to rule the galaxy once more.

It should look suitably ravaged but also distinctly Eldar. What do you think are the best ways to picture that on such a small surface as a base? What materials or structures would you use?

I've also opened a thread in the fluff section discussing the look of Crone Worlds and Satellite realms as I'm not entirely sure what they are supposed to look like in the first place. From various descriptions in books and novels they could be just about everything you can imagine.

There are some cool Wraithbone bases on the internet. Namely the ones by Microart Studio, but they are rather expensive for an entire army and look to "intact" for a crone world.

I stick a small blob or two of putty on most of my bases, then carve some lines or symbols in it before it dries. Imprinting things like coins, battery heads, and numbers off credit card/sprues seems to work fairly well. It's nowhere near as detailed as the kind that you can buy, but I don't like overly cluttered bases anyway - this works fine for me.

Take a look at this cool idea by a good friend of mine:
http://www.thedarkcity.net/t2035-making-broken-ruins-bases
These look FANTASTIC in person and are very easy to make. Again, they look awesome in person. If you have any questions for him but don't get a response through a PM let me know.

it's not cheap either, but scibor miniatures has a nice range of "eldar"-ruin bases

http://sciborminiatures.com/en_,shop.php?art=1518

Thanks for the pointer, ESE. I had totally forgotten that article, but now that you mention it I recognize it. These are very good bases, not exactly what i'm aiming for but I think I could get around that by adjusting the manufacturing process. Definitely worth an experiment and a cheap solution for basic things like guardians or kabalites.

Those scibor-bases are cool, Blutvogt. I only knew the ones Battlefield Berlin has in stock and those are not in their selection. Very expensive but might be worth a try for HQs and such. I'd need better pictures though. The scibor bases I had an eye upon are the ones with the broken statue heads (looking a bit like a buddha) http://sciborminiatures.com/en_,shop.php?art=872 these... but on a base.

Any other ideas to scratch-build the likes of that? I'm aiming for a ravaged eldar world (crone world or former satellite realm of commoragh).

Also on a sidenote: Where do I buy pigments for weathering, rust and such?

this "budda"-faces would fit really nice IMO.
naming Battlefield-Berlin and pigments, check the link, maybe it helps.

http://www.shop.battlefield-berlin.de/index.php/katalog/showarticles/10640-1-pigments.html

weeee! Great link, thanks. Wow, those are expensive.

especially liking those hand-made bases, may have to try that out for myself always was a fan of super sculpey.
for for own suggestion: how about plasticard (styrene sheets)? can probably make a good tile effect.

To save money you could press mould parts of the decorative bits of the bases and use milliput in your moulds to get lots of cool bits. I use a product called instamold, which is like a rubber that is flexible. You melt it in boiling water and then press it onto the surface/bit you need to mould. It then sets in about a minute and hey presto! You have a mould. Great way to spread out bases for your whole army

Great idea. I've thought about making moulds already but found the stuff to be quite expensive. There are lots of tutorials about 2 part moulds which is awesome... I could make myself a crapton of jetbikes for a saim hann style army, which I would never buy in store because of the cost. However 2 part moulds require special silicone and resin, both of which cost roughly 20 EUR a bottle. Still I'd totally like to do that, but to pay off I'd need good quality results... and about 20 or so of them (casts I mean).

This Instamold thingy sounds like a viable idea for base designs at least. Where can I pick it up? Do you have any experience with "real" molds?

Edit: Wow, Instantmold seems to be quite the thing. I'm going to try Oyumaru, which is basically colored instant mold from japan for half the price of the actual instant mold... and as far as I understood it the japanese stuff is actually the original... who knows?! Definitely a viable idea for recasting your own sculpts if you've made any. Replicating skulls for terrain deco? That's your thing? It potentially could recast whole models, but that gets difficult really fast because most models nowadays have lots of enclosed spaces. I suppose simple or old models could be cast using this stuff, for other things like say an assembled reaver jetbike you better stick with GWs product, because their casting process is that much more optimized. Also, beware of legal issues. But for things like terrain and bases that's definitely the way to go. I'll go order some and tell you how it goes. Maybe I'll up a tutorial if interest is present.

No i dont have any experience doing 2 part moulds. Again the same reason you have not = cost. And time constraints too as they look quite time consuming to do. Never heard of oyumaru but my stocks of instamold are running low so i will prob give it a try, especially if it is cheaper. Let me know how your trial of the stuff goes. Would be interested to see your basing results from it. I also use the stuff to make molds of purity seals, masks tabards ect. Cant really tell the difference once it is painted so i dont think legal issues will be a problem. Only if you sell them as a business could it bite you bit.

From what I've heard Oyumaru is exactly the same as Instant Mold, only a different manufacturer. Mine should arrive in a week or so, I'll post some step by step pics then.

I'd just use it for conversion bits, really. To do something as selling them in a large enough scale to be worthwhile you'd have to commit a lot of time to that. And with the expense of putty you'd be using your gain would be quite low. Same goes for the silicone mold, resin casting thing. To make up for the immense material cost you'd have to do like 50 copies at which point you're talking about at least 50 hours of work + time to the stuff to cure. Not worth it unless you have a lot of spare money and time. Might be a cool thing to try but when tight on money better leave it.