Before starting the painting I spent a lot of time looking for pictures of various types of wood and studying them very closely to pick out all the colours that make up the overall colour you see as "wood". I will encourage you to do the same, really look closely at the wood you want to replicate; you will be amazed at the number of different colours and shades present in that wood and that is what you need to replicate to make your "wood" look as real as possible. Having done this, I then spent quite a while trying different colour combinations on a scrap bit of hut that I wasn't using to perfect the technique required and the final colour result. Do this as well, it will help you.

On another note, the paints that I use are very rare in this corner of the miniature war-gaming community. I will attempt to supply you with correct or near-as-possible translations from my Humbrol Enamel paints to GW/Citadel Acrylic paints. I have a range of paint conversion charts that I usually use to convert what others do here into the paints that I use, but there is more Humbrol paints than GW paints so there is not always a direct conversion and sometimes there isn't one, even if I go via Vallejo paints. However I will do my best and I will be showing pictures of my paints so you can judge for yourself as well (or even suggest better matches). Also, apologies if these are the older, out-of-date paint names or a mixture of the old and new, I'm working with what I've got and really don't know which is which.

After all the testing of wood colours I decided to give the planks of the hut a sort of old, driftwood colour that would only be visible on the inside because the outside would be painted to be a grey, sun-bleached colour. The beams I wanted to look like a stronger, more substantial wood and so would be painted a brown, healthier colour than the planks. The table-top ended up being similar to the planks for the walls, but the bench I decided would be made from nice, hand-picked pieces of wood (because if you're going to sit on it, you're going to take more care about it's quality), and that is where I started painting...

But before that I gave everything a thin coat of very dark brown (Fig. 32), this was 33 (Black = Chaos Black) with a little 186 (Brown = Bestial Brown) mixed in. This was watered down to get into all the details and give the deep shadows, but was largely covered up in the end.

Fig. 32. Base coat of very dark brown.

The bench (Fig. 33) was painted to be a slightly red coloured wood (using mahogany as a reference).
Over the base colour the following were dry-brushed;
186(Brown = Bestial Brown) + a small amount of 60(Scarlet ~ Blood Red),
71(Satin Oak ~ Bleached Bone) not as heavily as the previous coat,
34(White = Skull White) lightly and in patches to give variation to the colour,
and then a wash with 33(Black = Chaos Black) Also patchy for variation and in dots to represent the nails.

The legs were done the same but without the added red and the black wash was concentrated more towards the ground to show the dampness seeping into the legs.

Fig. 33. Wooden bench.

For the table (Fig. 34), I painted the legs and frame first with the same paints that were used for the legs of the bench;
Over the base colour the following were dry-brushed;
186(Brown = Bestial Brown)
71(Satin Oak ~ Bleached Bone)
34(White = Skull White) lightly and in patches to give variation to the colour,
and then a wash with 33(Black = Chaos Black) Also patchy for variation and again concentrated towards the ground.

The frame and legs were masked off and the planks were then painted as follows;
Over the base colour the following were dry-brushed;
83(Ochre = Camo Green)
71(Satin Oak ~ Bleached Bone),
34(White = Skull White) lightly and in patches to give variation to the colour,
and then a wash with 33(Black = Chaos Black) in patches and streaks, but more heavily on the underside of the table and in two concentrated patches under the bottles and in the position of the bloodstain.

Once that paint had dried I painted the bottles with 21 (Gloss Black = Chaos black + gloss) with a little 20 (Gloss Crimson = Scab Red + gloss) for the wine bottle, and a little 10 (Gloss Service Brown ~ Scorched Brown + gloss) for the "Nuka"cola bottle. The "Guinness" bottle was left with just the black, but the difference between these bottles is actually a bit too subtle and could have done with more of the red and brown added. The labels were added later.

The bloodstain was painted with 1321 (Clear Red = ? ), keeping within the black wash area (where the "blood" has soaked into the wood) from earlier and then more black wash was added to the middle of the red patch to darken that further. Dots of black wash were also used for the nails on the planks.

Fig. 34. Wooden table.

I then moved on to the hut, starting with the inside. This was because while painting the planks some paint is likely to spill through the (many) gaps to the other side and it would be better for the bleached colour to spill through to the inside rather than the inside darkening the outside.

As before, the wood was base coated with very dark brown, and then the beams were dry-brushed with 186(Brown = Bestial Brown). The planks and beams (only partially) were dry-brushed with 83(Ochre = Camo Green), and then everything was dry-brushed with 71(Oak ~ Bleached Bone) (Fig. 35).

Fig. 35. Inside after dry-brushing with 186, 83 and 71.

The beams and planks were then given a wash with 33(Black = Chaos Black) in patches and streaks to give uneven shades and definition to the texture Fig. 36).

Fig. 36. Inside after the irregular black wash.

The beams were then given a wash with 186(Brown = Bestial Brown). Once that had dried everything was given a patchy dry-brush with 63(Sand ~ Iyanden Darksun) (Fig. 37).

Fig. 37. Inside after a wash of 186 on the beams and a dry-brush of 63 on all surfaces.

Finally the wood was completed by an irregular dry-brush of 34(White = Skull White) (Fig. 38). Weathering, dust/dirt, mould and rust were left until later.

Fig. 38. Inside complete after an irregular/patchy dry-brush of 34 over everything.

The outside was started with a dry-brush of 27(Sea Grey = Codex grey) and this was followed by a dry-brush of 64(Light Grey ~ fortress Grey) and then a dry-brush of 34(White = Skull White) (Fig. 39).

Fig. 39. The outside with (top) a dry-brush of 27, (middle) a dry-brush of 64 and (bottom) a dry-brush of 34.

The outside was then given an irregular/patchy wash of 33(Black = Chaos Black) focussing on area near the ground, roof, overlapping planks the ladder hook and plants (Fig. 40).

Fig. 40. The outside after an uneven wash of 33.

Then it was time to do what shall be known as anti-weathering. This is a process of adding the wood colour back to the bleached wood where it would actually be in the shade and therefore not be bleached by sunlight.

The first thing to do is plan where you will be adding this effect by looking for area of the wood where things like the roof and other planks overhang and would therefore shade the wood, these are likely areas that you have darkened with the black wash in the previous step. Paint these parts with 186(Brown = Bestial Brown) only lightly or use a wash but be careful so it doesn't go where you don't want it to.

There wasn't much on my hut in the end, a little along the roofline and a couple of loose planks. I also used the technique in areas that will acquire moisture, such as the plant growing under the roof and the ladder hook (Fig. 41), but these will have more paint added at a later date to further represent their influence (green for the plant and "rust" for the hook).

Fig. 41. Anti-weathering 186 wash.

After the brown has dried you then want to dry-brush some 83(Ochre = Camo Green) without completely covering the previous brown in the darkest areas and starting to think about blending the brown towards the grey without extending the non-bleached area too far (Fig. 42).

Fig. 42. Anti-weathering blended in.

The final stage of the anti-weathering is a dry-brush of 71(Oak ~ Bleached Bone) to complete the blend between the brown and the grey (think of it that as the wood has been bleached it went from the brown, through ochre, through oak/bone to dark and then light grey). This is followed by a black wash over the whole area to darken the grey and complete the blend/effect (Fig. 43).

The outside wood is then finished off with a patchy dry-brush of white and nails are added for the planks with black wash. You can even add a name plate if you like (Fig. 43).

Fig. 43. Final details to the outside.

Then came time to paint the rusty roof. Again, I encourage you to search for and study many pictures of rusty things and look at the many colours that make up the whole.

This is also where the colours of paint become complicated as I wasn't using paints straight from the pot and I tend to mix colours by eye without keeping track of how much I added of a particular paint. So you will have to just match the colours as best you can, however, as with painting wood you can't really do rust wrong. There is such a wide variety of colours of rust (and wood) that almost anything will work, within reason.

With that in mind the first colour to be added was a red-ish brown (that also included some black to darken it) that was used to cover everything that was to be rusty metal (Fig. 44). Also note that the underside of the roof was painted at the same time as the top and isn't greatly different.

...and remember the fine dried paint dust that was used for the mud on the base... a small sprinkle of this in your paint can add that rough texture/flakes that you get on rust. Who needs weathering powder?!

Fig. 44. Red-brown base layer.

The next colour added to the rust was a colour I noticed from a few images of very old rust; purple, applied as a wash and kept as non-uniform as possible (Fig. 45).

Fig. 45. Purple wash.

After that, I wanted to make the plates look individual (as if they had been added at different times and were made from differing grades of metal), so I started to add different colours in different quantities to different plates. Such as a red-ish wash (Fig. 46) that used the same paints as the base coat, but a larger quantity of red, and an orange wash (Fig. 47) that included both orange and yellow paint.

Fig. 46. Red-ish wash for some plates.


Fig. 47. Yellow/orange wash for other plates.

However, after these I decided that I quite liked the red wash effect and the orange wash was a little too light. So I used a black wash to darken some of the lighter patches and added some more red wash to some areas.

It's also worth noting that when I was applying the washes I would slap on a little of the wash and then spread it, direct it and remove it from areas by applying (quite large) quantities of white spirit and moving it about with my brush. You will want to use water for this with your water-based Acrylic paints, although you will want to reduce the surface tension as much as possible to achieve the same effect as an oil-based paint such as I'm using. Also, due to the large pools of solvent that resulted, I often got many "high water" marks on the roof. I reduced but didn't necessarily remove most of these marks with more evenly spread layers of solvent. The final result (Fig. 48) was quite pleasing even if I'm not entirely sure how it was achieved (I just kept going until it looked right).

Fig. 48. Finished roof.

and complete: