House Painting

When I picked up a dozen or so buildings off Mick at the Leven Miniatures stand at The Joy of Six the other day, I started saying to him that I hadn't finished the last lot but had to admit that in fact I'd hardly started the previous batch at all.

I do have enough to put together small farms and villages using my metal pre-Navwar Heroics & Ros buildings but the paint jobs are very scruffy now, having rattled around in Elastoplast boxes for over 30 years. Anyway, the Leven resin jobs were just too tempting, same goes for the thatched and leafy cottages I got off Ebay of undetermined provenance.

I made a start on some simple farm & mill buildings that looked solid enough to be made out of slate blocks with a slate tiled roof, I suppose much like constructions near Welsh quarries, although the texture on the warehouse walls is more like cobbles, there was enough on all surfaces to be able to dry-brush. I was going for a fairly plain utilitarian slightly rustic look, hence the ivy and so on. Paints are all Humbrol because all my older stuff is done in it (there wasn't a lot of choice in those days) and I didn't fancy changing.

• 127 US Ghost Grey base coat on walls for mortar
• 33 Black base coat on roofs
• 83 Ochre base coat on Factory chimney for mortar (to be honest, I didn't have anything better)

• 27 Sea Grey dry brushed on wall block work
• 27 Sea Grey dry brushed on roof tiles
• 62 Leather to pick out ridge tiles etc where present
• 62 Leather dry brushed on chimney stack for bricks (too light compared to colour of mortar, see next)
• 70 Brick Red dry brushed on chimney stack for bricks (that's better!)
• 70 Brick Red dry brushed very lightly on roofs to tone down the greyness and maybe add a little iron-staining, also to dull down the ridge tiles where present 

• 33 Black for open archways
• 110 Natural Wood woodwork (plain wooden doors & shutters)
• 98 Chocolate dry brushed onto woodwork
• 34 White wood panelled hoist overhang and sign on factory (toned down with a bit of dry brushed 28 Camouflage Grey)
• Pilot pigment ink pen to fill in window apertures
• Matt varnish top coat
• 98 Chocolate & Javis Scenics Light Meadow or Heath Green for ivy & other growth 

Easy paint job and functional on the table top.