Going With the Grain

I am in the middle of a fairly ambitious paint project I have been working on for a friend. I did manage to take a few in progress shots this time. I thought I would write an article about the process on how the wood rim of the base was painted as a means to show I have not abandoned this blog completely.

This was an unusual project for me as the scale is not one I usually work in. The rim in particular looks somewhat like a wood plinth the rest of the base is dug into. I wanted something much closer to the texture in actual scale than what I am typically accustomed to. The whole project has been a series of learning processes that I am lucky to have found myself with. For those looking to recreate my results, I used a lot of out of production colours on this model as I was not concerned about needing to match the formulas exactly in the future and I had quite a few older paints on hand. The process matters more than the exact colours however and there are many ways to vary the results.

The colours that were used. Top left is Reikland Fleshshade. Top right is Goblin Green and Fiery Orange. Bottom row from left to right are Bleached Bone, Gun Corps Brown, Vermin Brown, and Dryad Bark.

I started by cleaning up the base There was not much to clean on this part of the model, but I did smooth it a bit through a combination of knife work and wet sanding. There was more work on other parts of the model, but not really much to write about when it comes specifically to the rim of the base. I primed the base using Grae Tamiya Fine Surface Primer. This was my first time using this primer. I am normally okay with using whatever is cheapest, but I like to experiment. This is easily the smoothest primer I have ever used. I can see myself buying cans of this in the future in spite of the price.

This keyboard is cleaner than mine.

I based the rim with a mixture of P3 (Privateer Press Paint) Gun Corps Brown and an out of production (OOP) GW (Games Workshop) colour, Bleached Bone. I chose these colours because they had both been used on other parts of the model, but not the same parts together.

I streaked on some OOP GW Goblin Green and OOP GW Fiery Orange. These colours were also used elsewhere on the model. I wanted some subtle variation at the end. I probably could have skipped this step as it was practically all obscured by later layers, but I like to imagine it contributed to the end result in ways undetectable by myself.

I laid in the pattern for the grain with another OOP paint, GW Vermin Brown. There was no attempt at blending. I simply put down some wavy lines. I actually was not happy with the direction the lines were going so there was a part of the rim where I ended up with two sets of wavy lines going in different directions. These lines were put down for me to keep track of which direction the pattern was going in further steps.

The pattern is in place. I spent some time working on a couple of bands to ensure I was not wasting my time with this approach.

I filled in the bands that were created using a gradient of Vermin Brown up to Bleached Bone using the base mix of Gun Corps Brown and Bleached Bone as a midtone for the gradient. This obscured the pattern lines I was ignoring from the previous step as well as covered up most of the streaking. I did a little shading and highlighting as I went along, but this step was primarily about setting in the bands in the grain.

The next step was adding noise. The idea here was to break up the pattern. The eye will typically finish a pattern if one is hinted at. I went back and forth between the previous colours (Vermin Brown, Gun Corps Brown, and Bleached Bone) as well as added GW Dryad Bark. This colour is still in production and was yet another colour used on other parts of the model. Sometimes I was placing dots or lines that ran across the bands of wood grain. There are spots where I would put down a few dots of paint then swipe my finger across the surface while the dots were still wet. I also used this opportunity to pick out a few bands with the Dryad Bark to be darker than the rest to add some variety as all the bands were looking very samey to me.

Another angle of the bands. I did not have viable shots of the steps following this before applying the wash.

I highlighted the rim with thin passes of Bleached Bone. This was used on all the raised areas and sharp edges. I chose three points roughly equilateral to each other around the plinth to intensify the highlights. I did this so there was at least one bright point, and possibly two in view from every angle that was not directly above or below the model where you see three or none.

Sometimes using the flash, or turning it off as seen here, can make all the difference.

Shading was done with this passes of Gun Corps Brown and Dryad Bark.. I dropped the Vermin Brown at this point as while I needed some in there, the result was skewing more orange than I really wanted. The Gun Corp Brown was used mostly to tone down the sharpness of the grain work I did as well as help blend in the highlights and shadows.

I tinted the wood using multiple thin passes of OOP GW Reikland Flesh Wash building up to pure Reikland Flesh Wash. I started by getting the entirety of the wood surface. I reduced the working area with each pass concentrating the wash into the recesses and shadows as I went along. I also added more Reikland Flesh Wash to the mix as I worked so there was less water present as I progressed.

Woodn't you know it!

I applied a brush on gloss varnish (GW 'Ardcoat) to protect the work. I wanted to see how the glossiness would work with the rest of the model as I moved on to other parts. This came in handy as I later spot stripped other parts of the base. I still had some paint chips happen as I was aggressive in my stripping, but it could have been much worse.