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I've been buying and looking at scratch building a bunch of scenery for my companionship's new table.

I feel like painting a large church in Citadel grays might be a little more expensive than it needs to be. What paints do you guys use for your larger projects?

You don't need detail. You need coverage and dry-brushing to get some contrast into it.

Household acrylic emulsion is pretty cheap and uses the same basic chemical formula as Citadel. You could get a tin of a medium grey and a couple of tubes of artist's heavy body acrylic black and white to mix up some variations to the basic colour. You can mix in some fine sand to give it a texture.

Obviously you paint the darkest colour overall first, then go over it with several shades of lighter dry-brushing. A final thin dark wash will bring out the details of gargoyles and so on.

 Kilkrazy wrote:
You don't need detail. You need coverage and dry-brushing to get some contrast into it.

Household acrylic emulsion is pretty cheap and uses the same basic chemical formula as Citadel. You could get a tin of a medium grey and a couple of tubes of artist's heavy body acrylic black and white to mix up some variations to the basic colour. You can mix in some fine sand to give it a texture.

Obviously you paint the darkest colour overall first, then go over it with several shades of lighter dry-brushing. A final thin dark wash will bring out the details of gargoyles and so on.

Thanks for the comments. I'll go acrylic paints. As for the wash, is that just acrylic paints with a lot of water mixed in, or do you go about making your washes in some other way?

Any acrylics paint are good for painting sceneries or gaming tables.

I use these kind of paints :



And even acrylic paints that are normally used to paint house walls or so :

Colored primers are your friend as well. For buildings, the right shade of grey automotive primer will let you drybrush right over the top.

 Ifurita wrote:
Colored primers are your friend as well. For buildings, the right shade of grey automotive primer will let you drybrush right over the top.

I was planning on priming black and drybrush two types of grey on that, but I can see how a dark grey would make for a more natural transition.

I'm still wondering about washes though. What do you use to wash?

When it comes to scenery I tend to stick with the cheapest acrylic craft paints I can find. If it's a HUGE piece I'll use whatever mis-tinted acrylic paints I can get at the hardware store that look close to my base coat and buy them in small tins (Other peoples mis-tinted paint = cheap paint for you!);

if I'm doing a concrete look I will prime in black and drybrush up 2-3 shades of gray.

If I'm doing earthtones, I will generally prime in a dark brown and drybrush up 2-3 shades.

For a wash I will use either brown or black ink heavily diluted with water (1 part ink to about 4 parts water) and wash after I put on a clearcoat, OR I will use brown or black acrylic craft paints diluted with water to about the same mix (I'm not exact about it .. whatever looks good at the time).

(A few of my pieces are here - http://iwngu.com/wordpress/forums/?mingleforumaction=viewtopic&t=117)

Rorschach9 wrote:
When it comes to scenery I tend to stick with the cheapest acrylic craft paints I can find. If it's a HUGE piece I'll use whatever mis-tinted acrylic paints I can get at the hardware store that look close to my base coat and buy them in small tins (Other peoples mis-tinted paint = cheap paint for you!);

if I'm doing a concrete look I will prime in black and drybrush up 2-3 shades of gray.

If I'm doing earthtones, I will generally prime in a dark brown and drybrush up 2-3 shades.

For a wash I will use either brown or black ink heavily diluted with water (1 part ink to about 4 parts water) and wash after I put on a clearcoat, OR I will use brown or black acrylic craft paints diluted with water to about the same mix (I'm not exact about it .. whatever looks good at the time).

(A few of my pieces are here - http://iwngu.com/wordpress/forums/?mingleforumaction=viewtopic&t=117)

Thanks for the run-through, very helpful! And your pieces show that it works.

 Purifier wrote:
I'm still wondering about washes though. What do you use to wash?

Depends. "Wash," in the more general sense, usually just means a heavy application of very dilute/translucent pigment. You can do quite a bit just by adding tap water to cheap acrylic craft paint. The washes you buy from GW, Vallejo, etc. have a bit more to them, though. Dedicated washes have additives like acrylic medium and surfactants that help them flow and pool in recesses, so that they enhance detail and provide shading. You can get the same effect, yourself, if you're so inclined - Les Bursley did a video about his ink-based wash recipe that's pretty much the go-to reference, but even adding a bit of acrylic floor polish (I've seen military modelers and historical wargamers call this "magic wash") and/or a touch of dish soap (breaks surface tension) will turn cheap paint, once watered down, into a passable "true" wash. Oil paints diluted with white spirit also make for great washes, but their use necessitates extra time and varnish.

I use a lot of Liquitex Soft Body Acrylics in the 3 oz squeeze pots for washes. Raw Umber, Burnt Umber, and Paynes Grey will meet most of your needs. For US painters, they are very cost effective. I don't know what the equivlant in the EU would be. here is a link to the product I use:

http://www.liquitex.com/SoftBody/

You can go to a Home Depot or Lowes type store and look for a Mismatch shelf or somthing like that. its when they dont match the paint to what the customer wants and they reduce the paint by ALOT. I got a few gallons of paint(a few types of grays) for only about 4 dollars each, so for the price of one GW paint pot, I have all the paint I need for terrain forever.

Burnt Umber and Payne's Grey and so on are standard artists' colours you can find in practically any range of artist paints on the market. You will find them at any good art supplies shop.

As for washes, I would use strongly diluted colour with acrylic medium added to give it the ability to skin properly (stick to the substrate). Or, acrylic ink.

Sprays are good for covering large areas quickly. Grey primer would be a good base coat, or if you want more varied colours then Montana Gold or equivalent graphics sprays offer a wide variety.

There are also textured sprays, which I use on my Tau terrain. It paints the piece and gives it a rough surface at the same time.



Most spray paints uses solvents which will dissolve plastic foam inside foamcore board, so you should seal the edge of your walls with diluted PVA before spraying.