Lasercut house #1 "Dolls House Dilemmas".

I've completed painting my first mdf laser-cut house and I'm really happy with the results. I think doing a little extra work on the design in terms of making individual roof tiles and burrowing out the mortar between stonework created enough texture to make a more realistic impression and definitely made the painting stage a little easier as texture = dry-brushing!

I spray undercoated the build in grey and then used this colour as a base for the grey in between the beams. All of the rest of the painting was completed with tubes of acrylic paint (Daler-Rowney in this case). Subsequent greys (lighter than the undercoat) were dabbed into these areas between the beams which meant  that I then needed to re-paint the timbers matt black which was incredibly tedious as that process included the face of each timber as well as the top, bottom and sides. Touching up the windows with white was of little fun either.

Thankfully painting the stonework was quick and easy, using yellow-greys to create a sandstone appearance, followed by a range of terracotta hues for the roof tiles. Both of these were easily dry-brushed with slightly lighter shades to bring out the texture and light/shadow.

The final stage, my favourite stage, is the weathering which always surprises me in how easy it is and how quickly it unifies a paint job. Successive, very dilute layers of a variety of dark greens (eg. Hunters Green - my go to weathering green) and browns such as Burnt Umber and Yellow Ochre were used to streak the weathering from top to bottom. The appearance of moss was dabbed on slightly less dilute along the bottom of the stone work and in areas of shade - for example where the chimney meets the wall and where the pillar meets the stone floor. And that was it, first one down, although I might one day decorate inside too...

Part of me thinks that is an unnesecary job when there are so many other hobby ideas and tasks to do, but the Interior Designer in me disagrees. And I quite like a photo opportunity where my models can be placed inside with rugs and barrels etc. Dolls House Dilemmas.