Hi all. I'm building an out of the box diorama, and im looking for painting tips for the buildings and the street, looking for some ideas on how to make it look a bit weathered.
Thanks.
Keith.

Ola Keith

Welcome to the site. I see it is your first post here.

Maybe you can share a picture with us of what precisely you have bought. That way we can give you some proper advice regarding your project. There are some many different styles and techniques that "just take the right colors and go with it" doesn't cover the load.

Welcome Kieth,
I would suggest the same.

Tom

Hi there, thanks for the reply. I'm not sure how to post a pic but the kit is a 1/35 scale box set of a half destroyed building suppose to be set in budapest 1945. It comes with a vehicle and some figures to put in it but ive got a russian self propelled gun from tamiya that i want to put in it instead. So ive got a building exterior to paint and also the interior with alot of rubble to paint also. Hope that helps.

Keith.

Guess it's this one

Nice kit allthough the Vacu Form kits tend to be a bit challenging if you have never done one before. But still you can get an awesome result when finished.

First question I have is are you in possession of an Airbrush or do you brushpaint everything? Or even rattlecans.

Are you planning to do some detailling of the Groundworks? The Miniart stuff is really nice but you can enhance it even further by adding birdcage sand, Plaster chunks, Pieces of wood (stirring sticks work lovely.) Bricks cut from Corksheet before you are going to paint it. Even furniture would work quite nicely. A few bits of Evergreen stock styrene would have you a damaged bookcase.

Keith, good night

Look the url below.
good tip for street.

http://woodlandscenics.woodlandscenics.com/
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MryNS6Jgsv8&feature=player_embedded#!

regards
L.ZACCARO

Hi Keith,
to post photos just do the following:
1. load the photos to a stie like photo bucket or picasa web albums (both free)
2. go to where the photo is uploaded, click it to "enlarge" it
3. right click the photo, select "copy photo URL"
4. come to your thread on armorama, then type exactly, no spaces: [ img ]
5. after [img] paste your photo's URL
6. then, just after (no spaces) type exactly, no spaces: [ / img ]
that should do it. click submit thread, and see if the photos worked. let me know if you have trouble.

Yes it is that one. And as for how i paint, right now i'm painting with spray cans and brushes, but my wife has informed me that Santa is getting me an airbrush for xmas. And yes i would like to detail the groundwork.

Ola Keith
That is a nice kit. Reminds me of a diorama Shep Paine made in one of his books.

Actually you can get quite a result with spraycans and brush. The Spraycans allow you to do the big stuff quick n Dirty and you can do some masking for smaller details. Find the right colors you like. Basically try to take all the steps apart to determine what you would need to do first. In this case for the building I would spray the overall grey color first. And then the red colored strips on the bottom of each room by masking it. Handpaint the bricks with several shades of lighter grey and some darker for some variation. And make sure the rubble at the bottom (the brick and plaster stuff) is largely the same colors as you painted the building. After that you can start with thinned dark paintcolors to create washes. Brush them in cracks and crevasses to bring out the details. Do a drybrush over the top details to highlight them. You can even toy around with pigments to give a dusty atmosphere.
A lot of stuff you can make yourself. Like wallpaper for instance. Check out the following site.printmini. I have been using this for years now. They have a great wallpaper section. Simply print it out. Apply into place with some woodglue and bob's your uncle.

I'm actually looking forward to your built. You can make really neat things with the stuff miniart is offering.