This page will give some informations about the colors and paintingtechnics I used painting my 28 mm model house "Die Dorfschänke".
I used acryl paints from the ranges of LUKAS ARTS and LASQUAUX. But I think you will find matching colors from nearly every company and range.
Before I started painting the different pieces I testfitted them without glue. I painted the different pieces before gluing them together and I would strongly recommend to do this. It is much more easy to paint single pieces laying flat on the workbench than a whole threedimendional house of nearly 1 kg weight.
With the exception of the roof and the base, which are cast in a grey colored resin, the whole model is cast in a rockhard dark grey dental plaster. For the parts in plaster there is no priming necessary. The color stucks very good to this material but did not soak the paint to much.
The resin parts should better be washed with soapy water before painting. You could also give them a thin layer of (black) primer with a spray can.
In a first step I heayly drybrushed the stones with an light beige or offwhite. There is no need to be careful at this stage. The stones will be colored with different washes later. In a second step I painted the wooden parts in a black-brown color. This steps can be seen on the next two pictures.
The next step is to paint the plasterd areas between the wooden framework and around the stones. As an color I used an light ochre. I painted it with not to much paint and a wider paintbrush with the tip formed like a tongue. It is a process like heavy drybrushing. This allows the darkness of the material shine through, especially in the dents of the structure. I tried not to get to much of ochre on the wooden framework as I had to repaint this with brown later again
The next step is to paint the wooden parts. I used a middle brown and carefully drybrushed it. The beams are heavyly structured so the wooden look is easy to achieve. Then I took my light beige color again and drybrushed the wooden and plastered parts very lightly.
The following three pictures also show the painting of the windows. The arched windows with bullseye pane got a very dark green basecolor. This has been highlighted by carefully drybrush the structure with a brighter green. The rectangular windows got a basecolor of black or dark blue. Then I painted on some reflections in a light blue. This step is a bit tricky and very timeconsuming but looks much better than plain black. The next three pictures shows this two steps in detail.
At this point it is time to paint some details. I painted the metal parts of the doors in a dark siver (black 60%, silver 40%). The highlights are painted on the edges in pure silver.
The bullseye panes were given one or two thin coats of a shiny varnish. The glass of the rectangular windows got also a thin coat of shiny varnish. After drying an additional round dot of a viscouse varnish is added to the middle of every glass. This varnish is simply a pot of older varnish from HUMBROL. This trick gives the impression of domed surface and gives nice reflections of the light.
I also applied at this stage a light wash of ocher to all plastered parts to give them a deeper and warmer look. The pigments flow into the dents of the surface and add some light shadows too.
The following four pictures show the walls before assembly. The weatering effects and coloring of the stones were done after assembly and are described later.
The next steps are to paint the smaller pieces like stone steps, chimmey, doormers and barrels. They were all painted seperatly with the colors and technics already desribed above.
The slate roof has been painted by carefully drybrushing with an offwhite. It is importend to always stroke the brush over a piece of tissue paper bevor drybrushing. To much color on the brush will definately result in visable marks on the relative eaven surface that can't be removed.
The wood is again painted as described above.
The base is simply drybrushed in different shades of brown for the earth and grey for the stones. The wooden rack for the barrels and the pieces of firewood were painted in a middle brown first and the drybrushed with ochre and light ochre (ochre 50%, white 50%).
The assembly of the walls is easy because of the interlocking edges. I used wood glue. I put it on the joints of the base as you can see in the next two pictures. Then I added the four wall pieces without any glue at the interlocking sides. I secured the walls with an elastic band.
Now I added some more glue to the joints from the inside of the building. This step can be seen on the picture three to four.
The other parts like the roof and steps are glued to the model with woolglue at this stage too. The glue needs about three hours to dry .
The next two pictures show the painted tavern shield. This has been sculpted and cast by a friend of mine - Stefan Niehues - who is a professional sculptor. The monk and the writing is sculpted and so painting them is easy. The writing says "Zum durstigen Mönch" that means "To the thirsty monk" in English.
I fixated the shield with some fine chain to the supporting beam. I simply drilled four small holes into the beam and the shield and used some wire to glue the chain with superglue.
The next step is weathering the house. This helps making the whole building look more realistic. Water and dirt will leave its marks on older houses. And the fewest stones are rearly grey but show different shades of brown, ochre, and green.
I tried to achieve this look by applying some washes. For this I used airbrushcolors from Schmincke in the colors black, burnt sienna (orange-red-brown) and umbra (greenish brown) in different kinds of mixes and shades. The advantage of the airbrushcolor is the finer pigments used instead of ordinary acrylcolors. It is importend to water down the inks. It is better to apply a second or third wash than to use to uch paint. It is almost impossible to remove the (dried) color if you got to much color on the model.
For the dirt I used mostly umbra, because the greenish brown color looks right for my taste. I applied the most paint at areas where in real life water will gather (on top of horizontal timber or stone) or run down (from stones,windows or beams). Take a look at the next pictures to see what I mean.
The stones are monochrm grey from the drybrushing at the moment. I added washes od different shades and mixes of the three inks (black, burnt sienna, umbra) to single stones. This can be done with strongly thinned washes to simply give a hint of a different color or by applying pur inks to make some stones stand out. A different effect can be achieved by giving a stone a strog wash with nearly unthinned ink and then remove most of the it with a paper tissue. A further trick is to lightly drybrush a (dry) stone with black.
The base is the next part to finish. With the painting done in an earlier step I only had to add some patches of gras. I used woodglue and static gras in different length. The glue is applied in irregular dots and then the a lot of the graslitter which I lightly pressed into the glue. One have to keep in mind that the finished graspatches will become much bigger than the dots of glue. The glue needed a few hours to dry thorough. Then I removed the excess of the static gras on a piece of newspaper. I always drybrush the static gras with different shades of ocher and offwhite. This additional step remove the unrealistic glaze of the synthetic material and allows to get some variety in colors.
In a last step I added some cut some small pieces of paper and painted them on one side in a silver-grey. Then I soaked them in a mix of woodglue and water to make them fexible. Beginning at the lower brim I positioned the soaked pieces around the dormer and the chimmey. It is important to let the higher piece overlap the lower ones. I pressed the still wet and flexible pieces into the dents. This makes the addtions to the roof don't look on top but to be integral part of the roof.
The result looks like a a facing in lead that has been used since several hundred years to seal parts of the roof.
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