Ola everyone

I've decieded to start a topic which I will update from time to time instead of starting different threads once a month or so. Since the last update I purchased an airbrush and so decided to give it a try and basecoat the whole tower+base. My thoughts after were:

- you need quite a lot of paint to basecoat such a huge model and it is time consuming

- I chose gray as the basecoat paint and 60% of the whole model is gray, so I didn't even know what is painted and what is not. Because of that the whole thing is 40% gray, 40% light gray and 20% only cover with a thin very light gray layer of paint:)

- having your model placed around 1meter above the ground on an old chair, standing while painting and not having enough light is not the best idea:) I really need to find a new place to paint which would be better than my garage

- I guess I thinned the paint too much, 30% paint and 70% Tamiya acrylic is too thin

Enough thoughts, now some pictures:)

Front and back of the tower:





I added some bigger rocks and a few smaller ones along the pathway which will be on the right of the tower. It's cool how just a little paint can show all the details:



I have to buy some more paints and move on with the painting.

What colors from the Tamiya range would you suggest on this piece. I'm thinking beige and grays for the stones and some darker brown shades for the ground. If you could suggest what Tamiya color codes would work best (for example XF-"number" for the ground) I would be really grateful. There are lot's of color tables on the web, but most of those colors are different in reality so some suggestions from owners would really help:)

Thanks in advance,
Cheers,
dsc.

Hi Tom,

What you really need to do in this case is to spray the whole thing a very dark grey as basecoat. Here you can use a can (Tamiya Greman Grey for ex.) It's really faster. That will be true also for your base. With this coat you will have already the joints between the stones darkened and will need only a minimum of dark washes later.
After that you take some lighter colours, whatever brown/grey/sandy mixes you like, and try to airbrush the whole thing randomly to give different colour tones. This you need to do of course more carefully and try to leave the dark primer in the recesses.
The rest of the operation is drybrushing.
Don't hesitate to take some green/brown tones like khaki or even Flesh colours. Imagination and nature allows a lot of colours.

Hey, and better to much thinner, you can always go back with a coat of colour.

Cheers
Claude

Hi Claude

Sorry for such a late reply, I'm freakin' busy with a lot of stuff now and don't even have time to paint or even visit this forum and comment on other people work.

That's what I'm gonna do. Whole thing goes dark gray, than I will use the preshading technique for all the cracks. The next thing is to use various colors to add some life to the whole thing. And drybrushing on top. I might use masking tape to paint different stones in various colors as my airbrush control is not so great and I might overspray a lot of stones which are already painted.

Cheers,
dsc.

I think that you don't need/can use your airbrush up to this stage.
After randomly spraying your different colour tones without covering the joints , you only work with drybrushing and washes.
You will get different stone colours with varying washes of the ind. stones. (greener at the bottom and the north side) and varying colours of drybrushing. No need to mask anything except your door .

Cheers
Claude

Ola Claude

So basically the steps are:

- paint with a darker gray (basecoat)

- apply preshading

- apply different colors to the whole tower

/_____________done with an airbrush__________/

/----------------------done without an airbrush--------------/

- add oil washes

-apply drybrushing

-apply weathering

Is it correct?

I'm worried that I will have do some masking on the drybrushing stage, as I usually drybrush everything around the choosen element. Because colors will vary on different stones it would be wise to protect everything around the painted element or use a smaller brush. I'm not sure what to do as I'm not good at drybrushing with smaller brushes.

I will use dark gray for the base coat and than lighter grays, beige and browns for the stones. I just have to buy me some paints, cause all I have is light gray and gloss black:)

Cheers and thanks for your answers,
dsc.

Hi,

I think that's basically the way to go. You can always go back one step and redo paints ,washes and everything you don't like or overdid.
And don't forget, your tower is under the influence of wheater since a few hundred years, so you have a lot of freedom.
I think Tom, with all respect, that you worry to much. Just start painting and you will get a feeling for it. It's not a 1/35 face to paint, it's a wall!

Have fun

Claude

wow that groundwork really is something. I really like that technique, I think it creates an amazing effect in scale. Could you tell me more about how you did that ??

Ola Jon

Recently Paul asked my how I did it, you can read about it here:

https://armorama.kitmaker.net/forums/85878&page=1

Hope it helps, if not I will be happy to answer any questions that you have.

Cheers,
dsc.