The Abbey of Vaca Sagrada - Part Seven

Clarence Harrison - After letting all of the glue dry (again), it was finally time to start painting! I painted swatches of the colors from Games Workshop paints and carried them to my local hardware store to have pints mixed to match them. It is not important to use the same colors I use as you can get great results with many different earthtones, but I will include them here and use them in the following explanation simply because I know someone will ask. Listed from darkest (the first coat I apply) to lightest (final highlights): Scorched Brown, Dark Flesh, Bestial Brown, Bubonic Brown, and Bleached Bone. They greys for the stone are basically dark, medium, and light and tend toward a cooler blue grey - I don't think I had specific GW references for those. Again, any brand of paint will work and I suggest you go with whatever you are most familiar with.

The entire model with the exception of the grass and the roof was painted a dark brown textured with a small amount of sand. Then I painted the roof with the same color, but left out the sand.

Dark paint textured with sand provided the base for the rest of the painting. Although my original drawing called for a cross on the wall, I found this great Wargames Foundry monk to use as a statue that I liked better.

I picked out the rocks and some of the heavier areas of rubble with a dark grey. The courtyard and stairs were painted with the same color.

The entire model with the exception of the roof and the grass (though it is fine to let some of the textured paint blend out onto the grass) was painted with Scorched Brown mixed with a small amount of fine sand to provide a textured ground for the rest of the painting. The roof was given a coat of Scorched Brown without the sand. The remaining colors were painted in successively lighter coats using a technique called drybrushing. Basically, the brush is dipped into the paint and wiped over a paper towel before lightly being drawn across the model. It's always better to have too little paint on the brush than too much since you can go over the same area several times to build up the color. Dark Flesh was carefully applied to the entire model including the roof. Bestial Brown and Bubonic Brown were painted on the walls (Bubonic Brown is a golden tone and was also lightly brushed on the grass in spots to add variety) and earth areas and finally Bleached Bone was applied only to the walls. The roof was given light highlights of dark red and orange. Then the rocks and courtyard were painted dark grey and highlighted first with the midtone and then sparingly with the light grey.

The first highlight is applied to all of the earth sections, the building, and the roof. Paint is applied roughly so that some of the base will still show.

The rocks are highlighted with a mid-tone grey that brings out the detail.

The second highlight is warmer and applied only to the earth and walls.

The third highlight is again applied to the earth and walls. Each coat is applied a little lighter than before. You can really see the texture starting to pop!

The fourth highlight is almost white and is applied only to the building so it will stand out from the earth around it.

The last steps are details. I picked out the door in dark tones and painted the metal as dark iron. I painted a few model accessories like a barrel and wheelbarrow and simply set those in the courtyard. Finally to add a last layer of variety and texture to the hill, I painted on patches of white glue and sprinkled static grass. You continue this process for as long as you like, adding shrubs or small trees to the slope, random bits of fencing, or anything else you can dream up, for my purposes the model was finished!

The roof is highlighted with red and finally very lightly with orange. Note the broken tiles in the foreground by the wall. These are painted to match the roof.

When all of the paint is dry I add one more layer of detail with scattered static grass. Next week we'll look at a few more pics of the finished model!