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| 1st Corps Russian Church - nice model and enjoyable to paint |
When we decided that our Tactica offering was to be GNW based Toggy ordered a wadge of buildings and accessories without telling me exactly what would hit the mat!
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| A concession to frippery during the industrial production of the village |
A large box arrived and I unpacked it to reveal a church, some farm accessories and three wooden houses with bits and pieces. Wow! - will I have time to paint this stuff considering I only have 13 nights at home between Jan 10th and February 20th. I needed a plan and a method.
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| Log cabin with added straw and chickens! I enjoyed painting the poultry! |
I quickly decided on the method - big brushes, emulsion paint and ink washes. I do not try and pick out minute details on 28mm buildings but prefer to create a 'look'. The look I have decided on is weathered wood, relatively unadorned and inconspicuous.
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| I did a fair bit of cosmetic dressing on this piece including rope and buckets |
Here is the technical bit:
1. Wash all pieces in warm soapy water.
2. Undercoat all components in dark chocolate emulsion with a very large brush and allow to dry for 48 hours.
3. Coarsely drybrush (drybrush coarsely?.. no swearing chaps!) with a stone grey type shade and allow to stand for 48 hours
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| The church from a different angles |
4. Drybrush again with a lighter shade of the stone grey emulsion - leave to dry as per before
5. Finally highlight in a drybrush with the last shade mentioned + a white addition - leave to dry as before.
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| The weathered wood look came out exactly as I wanted it - busy poultry! |
6. Now wash down in a mix of artist's inks - 5 parts Burnt Umber, 5 parts India Yellow, two parts black, 20 parts water.
7. Fill in window detail, internal chimney breasts, external chimneys, smoke blackening of chimney and fires, onion domes dress the bottom edges of the buildings with a layered drybrush - chocolate brown, leather brown, khaki.
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| I wanted the church to be ordinary looking and understated |
Additional details such as static grass, poultry, ropes for the well, green moss on the cut wood, yacht varnish in the well water, straw added afterwards.
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| pieces going together pretty well here (no pun intended). My rooster was fun to do. |
I completed about 7 feet of fencing using the same method. I am very pleased with the result when you compare the output versus the macro techniques and minimal time used to complete.
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| The hay pile is static grass over painted in emulsion and acrylics |
All done now and ready to be garrisoned by the Swedes against a large Russian horde.
A taste of some of the troops painted by Rob Goodyer and coming in the next Tactica preparation post...
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| A large Streltsi unit... sans etandard |