I want to paint some carpenter and garden tools for my diorama. Is there a 'how to' or can you guys tell me how to paint these tools to give the wood and steel the right look?
I hope for a quick respons so i can start painting.

I find gun-metal shades work well to depict the metal areas on spades and pick axes, that sort of thing. If you burnish the edges and raised areas with some graphite or a sharp pencil i createss a nice sheen that gives a very good metallic appearance.

As for the wood, I personally paint it first in Vallejo 'Old Wood' which is a kind of khaki color. Once that is dry I use a thinner moistened brush to apply a coat of dark brown oil paint. You can leave this for a few days or a few hours. Whatever you decide, when you come back to it, dip your brush in thinner and very lightly run a brush (small, pointed ones work best) up and down the wood areas to give an impression of wood grain. The object is not to remove the oil paint totally but to create the appearence of wood grain. If you make a mistake you can simply strip the oil paint with thinner and start again.

A light spray of decent matte varnish usually seals the oils up as these paints don't dry quickly (depends on the brand but some can be a month or more in drying time) and it will come off if you touch it too much.

This is just the way I usually go about it. There are plenty of other ways. Hope this helps.

Tx Karl. I painted the metal part with Vallejo steel mixed with a little grey/black. After that i rubbed some graphite on it with a sponce and the raised edges with a pencil. Next time i'll try the wood details.