After the success of the Warbases workshop project, I have had a run on touch ups to the other MDF buildings in the shed. The red brick colour that I used for the workshop was done with a staple for my MDF buildings, artists ink. I first came across this stuff when I wanted a colour wash for some miniatures. Let me tell you, it’s useless for that! BUT, it is great for MDF buildings as it soaks into the wood and gives a nice finish while still leaving any engraved lines very visible.
The red brick colour is done using a red earth shade. At about £6-7 a bottle from my local artist shop, this stuff is not cheap, but it does last, and a little goes along way (and when you are done, the bottle and pipette can be used for any other paint mixes you want to make up).
The police house got a coat of red earth to start with and shows the contrast of the old, plain wood, colour (on the roof and door) and new brick quite well in this photo.
The Pub was next and looks great with its red brick look. I even, finally, added in the red to the brick wall at the bottom of the greenhouse too.
My Flemish house has very plain, high walls, so needed to be more than base wood colour too. The dormer windows got a coat of uniform grey while I was at it. They suddenly became very obviously wood coloured when all the other surfaces were painted. As the tiles are dry brushed in this colour it ties in well with the roof as well.
The police house was finished with black window frames (no white plastic frames in Victorian times). I used a lighter grey for the buildings name plate, and door surround on the building as well. Then the problems started…
While I was adding the grey, I accidentally splodged some in the upper right hand corner, above the door. As it was a tiny mark, I thought a quick touch up with the red earth ink would be enough to cover it up. This however resulted in a much darker shade in one area of the wall. Applying two coats of ink changes the colour completely… The darker area looked very obvious and I had no way of lightening it.
So I decided I could either paint the whole wall again, and hope that the corner became less obvious, or I could add in other areas of darker brickwork to make it look like it was a variation in the brickwork. I opted for the latter, but the size of the accidental change in the corner remained very obvious compared to the other areas of repainted bricks. The only other way to fix it was to cover it up with something…
This little item turned up in the post just in time to sort things out and cover up the majority of the problem. Its a 1/48 scale, train set police lamp. It comes complete with a little LED bulb and wires. A little more than I needed, as I don’t trust my electrical aptitude enough to power up a wooden building in a shed that is so full of flammable objects.
I’ve lots of other buildings still to paint up in the shed. But, now that I’ve set on a basic brick colour, I think about getting started on the others. I do plan to mix up a couple of pots of ink with a lighter and darker shade, to gain some variation, so that they are not all the same colour.
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