## 2. Bend the wire
I got a small metal rod from a model shop and cut it into 4cm (400mm) sections.
At roughly the bottom 10mm mark, I bent each section to form an L-shape "tail".
## 3. Glue wire stand to underside of base
Insert the wire through the hole in the base so that the "tail" is hooked under the base.
Purchase some _gel_ super glue.
The kind I know of is [ZAP PT26 or PT27](https://www.zapglue.net/product-page/pt-27-3-grams-zap-gel).
It's important to get _gel_ super glue.
Typical super glue is not very viscous, and so it drips away from the thing you're trying to glue.
In this case, that means the glue runs out the hole in the base, and it thins out under your metal rod, and basically has no lasting effect.
Gel super glue, on the other hand, stays exactly where you put it, and that's what you need.
You have to hold the stand in place while the glue dries, or at least until it's even more viscous than at first.
After a few minutes, the stand ought to stay in place enough for you to set them down to let them continue to dry.
It doesn't have to look pretty on the underside, of course, because you'll never see it.
Mine look terrible, because it took me several failed attempts with other materials before I got to this point.
But it works.
## 4. Dry over night
There's no way around this.
You have to let the stands dry before you proceed.
Don't be impatient like me, just walk away from your hobby table and don't come back until the same time on the next calendar day.
## 5. Drill a hole in the spaceship
If your spaceship model doesn't have a hole in its underside already, use a modeling drill to make one.
This can be fiddly, and indeed I bent and then broke my drill bit because I didn't know what I was doing and because resin is _miserable_ to work with.
So be careful, take your time, and drill.
## 6. Glue the spaceship onto the metal stand
Put on a good podcast or movie or something, because this step involves a lot of holding things in place.
Place a drop of your gel super glue on or in the hole you've drilled in the spaceship, and then stick it onto a metal stand.
Because you're essentially balancing the ship on a needle, you have to hold it in place while the glue dries.
In practise, it doesn't take too long (maybe 5 minutes) until you can confidently set the ship down to continue to dry.
## 7. Base paint?
This part has been frustrating and I don't really have a great solution yet.
I had intended to paint the bases with something (like Citadel's Mordant Earth) to suggest a nebula or something space-y.
I did this on a few models, and after the paint had dried I realised that I'd accidentally gotten the most mordant Earth I'd ever gotten from Mordant Earth.
It looks positively volcanic, and I swear I've used it on MANY demonic miniatures (well, their bases) and I've never had such great results.
The problem is, of course, that I don't want these to look demonic or volcanic.
These I wanted to be understated, with swirly cracks in the surface of the paint to reveal a bright base colour.
Well, that didn't work.
I still haven't decided what to do about decorating the [rest of the] bases.
I've seen tutorials for making fancy "high tech" looking bases, like with wire and mesh and things like that, but I don't feel like that's appropriate for bases representing outer space.
For consistency, I might have to continue with Mordant Earth.
Maybe the bases have become charred from the afterburn of the ship's thrusters?
## Obligatory grouse
Getting miniature spaceships seemed like it would pretty easy, so I wasn't very critical of my goal.
I had no idea what epic journey I was about to embark upon, but I'll boil it down to 2 points so I can move past it and talk about how to put spaceships on bases.
1. Spaceship miniatures aren't as ubiquitous as you might expect. At least, not ones outside established franchises like Star Wars and stuff. I was able to find exactly one supplier of them, and all models were 3d printed in _resin_.
2. Resin is terrible to work with. It's brittle, it doesn't work with the glues you're probably using for all your other miniatures, and the resolution of 3d printing is still not great. After suffering through resin for my Roman and Egyptian armies, I swore I'd never buy resin again. Out of desperation, I broke this rule for spaceships. But this time, I really mean it: Never. Again!
Suffice it to say that sourcing really good spaceship models was basically impossible.
I settled for resin models with muddy features, and I just had to accept international shipping costs.
Not a great experience.
And I'm saying that _before_ I tried to put them on bases.
## Trouble with gravity
Miniatures that are supposed to be mid-flight are really hard to put on bases.
You want to make the model look like it's flying, but obviously the model isn't really flying and is subject to gravity.
So it needs to be suspended above its base.
I think that before I purchased my ships, I was kind of imagining that they'd be conveniently flat on the bottom, a little like the boat in Monopoly.
I imagined painting them and then placing them on my [ZoneMat Battle Mat](https://mixed-signals-gaming.printify.me/product/5967430) and moving them around.
It didn't occur to me that they'd be spaceships all around until I got them in the mail, at which point the obvious became clear to me.
These ships are meant to be in space.
They don't sit flat.
For the sake of cool design work, there are sticky-outy parts all over the model.
They have to be suspended.
Apparently, there are no industry standards (or even just conventions) for mounting spaceships above a miniature base.
Some models just expect you to drill a hole in the bottom and stick it on a wire stand, others have a ridge that you're meant to glue to a plastic stand, others have scenic assistance (I've never seen this for spaceships, but character miniatures are often "launching" off of a rock or column or similar).
So you have to improvise.
And I did a lot of improvising.
I tried epoxy.
I used "sprue goo" (melted hard plastic and CA glue) to affix the wire stands (this actually works, but it's a lot messier than gel super glue).
I tried plastic stands (not enough surface area on the plastic stand to securely affix to the spaceship).
It took me weeks to get a solution, and it wasn't particularly fun.
But in the end, I did figure it out, and I'm happy with the results.
_Or at least I'm happy that I have a working result._
## Good or great results
Having taken photos of the finished product for this blog post, I'm actually really pleased with the end result.
Through the lens of a camera, I'm able to see the intended flying effect of mounting a model over its base.
I'm not sure I love it, and I think if I were designing spaceship miniatures I'd probably just do the Monopoly boat trick.
Cut the ship in half laterally and agree that everyone's viewing the space battle from "above".
You can see the bottom of the ships not because it's submerged, but because that's just not the view you have.
However, models like that apparently don't exist, and maybe once I saw such a model I'd change my mind.
For now, for whatever reason, spaceship models are mounted on stands.
And I have to admit that sometimes, it looks kind of cool.
Monopoly photo by Suzy Hazelwood, using the Pexels license.
All other photos by Seth Kenlon using the Creative Commons cc0 license.