Thursday 28 August 2014

Industrial Wild West Part 2 - Prospector's Office

I thought the first building I'd make was the Prospectors Office. There are quite a few "mystery " components on the mdf sheets, so I will be starting with the more obvious builds and hope to figure out what the mystery pieces are for by a process of elimination. The sections for this come from Sheets 1 & 4 of the kit post.

I decided that base sections would be easier to paint un-assembled before any weathering was added.

For painting I will be following the tutorial instructions from Lead Adventures forum member "Michi". The results from shown in this thread will tell you why. I hope mine come out half as good.

For my own reference as much as yours, the technique is:
  • No primer is necessary. 
  • Choose a base colour and apply it with rough strokes of a flat brush. That will leave some wood (MDF) shining through. 
  • Repeat that with increasingly lighter shades of that colour (three or four layers). 
  • Wash the entire building with a very watery black wash. 
  • Apply another wash of a dust colour of your choice. This wash should be rich with pigments. You can take away too thick areas with fresh water while the wash is still wet or with alcohol when it has already dried.
  • Finally apply a rather light drybrush of sand or light grey colour.

As ever I got a bit carried away and painted them up without inbetween shots. You've not missed much though. Here I've done the base coat and 3 lighter layers. The sign was painted in after this process.

A big decision was whether to make the doors "open-able". As most the other scenic pieces in the set a obstructions it was decided that having a building to duck into would be good, so off they came. More on how they are re-attached later.

The Front roof segment sits tight tot the front signage so was glued in place. The rear roof section just slots over tabs on its own. The tabs were slightly thinned to make removing\replacing the roof section easier to get the figure in the building that bit easier.

The section in place.


The construction so far before any washes are added.

 Another missed photo didn't document the buidling after the 2 washes (One thin black and other a thin  burnt umber\sienna mix), but here I've applied the light dry brush of a mixed sandy brown colour.

To hinge the doors I though some fabric would be the best bet. I initially cut some thing lengths of denim, but they frayed and fell apart. Luckily I have small felt offcuts from another project which hadn't been thrown out yet, so they were pressed into service with white glue. (At time of writing the dried results have not been fully tested!) The hut interior was also given a quick layer of white.

And here is the finished structure.

3 comments:

  1. fantastic scenery as always pal

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  2. how to do something nice with a laser-cut model ... Good work!

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  3. Cheers guys. Amazing what can be done by following someone's simple but effective tutorial.

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