I'm building a model of a Japanese "Yatai" which is a small wooden cart that they set up on the sidewalk and cook and sell food with.

This one has a "wooden" roof. The wood panels have woodgrain texture embossed in the plastic. My question is what's the best way to paint this to enhance the woodgrain?

I can think of two approaches:

a) Paint the whole thing in the woods "main" color, which in the picture is kind of blonde. Then do a wash over the entire surface with dark brown - the grain color which (hopefully) fills in the recessed grain in the plastic.

b) Paint the whole thing a darker shade (the grain color), then drybrush a lighter color over it.


By the way, I mainly use acrylics.

Any ideas?

- MonkeyBoy

My cousel would be to use both methods : paint... wash, wait a bit... remove the excess from the wash
... try a very very light drybrush...

I agree with PenPen. Do them both, you will like the appearance. The dark will make the recesed grain stand out and the highlights will pick up the raised detail.

One thing I noticed is that people try to overdo unfinished wood. Most ammo crates, wood planks, handles, etc are just raw wood (which is a light tan unless it is an exotic wood). Do a base coat, a nice wash, and drybrush as mentioned above. Now if you're gonna replicate mahagony, thats another story...use red browns, etc....just my $.02

John

Now I feel like having a bowl of ramen ! And that's something rather difficult to find in Paris (I know
1 restaurant)...
Thank you very much Monkeyboy !!!