Painting Stonework - a simple tutorial

How I paint stonework.

In this Blog and in my modelling books (see links to top right of this page), I regularly comment on the importance of painting natural looking stonework. I am currently working on a project that should be featured in print sometime later this year and features both natural stonework and white-washed walls.

Here is a short post detailing how I painted the stonework.

Image One - The stonework is given an all-over basecoat of Dark Brown which is mixed from Charred Brown from Vallejo and Negro Black from Vallejo. I tend to mix both colours on the model to give a variety of different tones.

Image Two - I have picked out a couple of individual stones in both grey and Snakebite Leather and when dry, drybrushed the whole wall with grey (remember to add some brown or cream to your grey as this gives a 'warm' grey colour which is much more natural).

This is done three or four times, picking out the odd stone and then drybrushing with lighter and lighter colours until you have this effect.

Image Three - I have washed the stonework with a very dilute dirty brown to highlight the courses.

Image Four - More drybrushing and defining the white-washed walls. I have also washed the stonework and white-washed walls with some more dilute dirty brown.

Image Five - Stonework finished, walls finished, woodwork finished and groundwork finished.

I hope that you agree that this 'natural' stonework colour is better than a simple Black/White or Grey drybrush. You should also be able to see how I tend to paint the base of the walls on my models slightly darker on the lower portions and lighter the further up the wall I go.

Image Six - The important shot. These are the paints used during this tutorial.

I hope that this helps.

Tony