painting mdf

[ochoin]

I just bought this:



I've only ever painted one mdf building before - not overly to my satisfaction.

Any tips on painting this ecclesiastical structure?

donald

[BaronVonWreckedoften]

If you go onto the Too Fat Lardies website, Richard and Nick have both got videos on how they put together MDF buildings of various shapes and sizes, and "tart them up" to not look like they are just straight out of the box.

[Paul]

A light undercoat in white or pale cream/grey from a rattle can as otherwise the MDF will soak up your paint quicker than Ken and Jeremy soak up booze at a sambuca festival.

I then use contrast paints for any woodwork or stonework where there's a decent texture. I tend to use them on everything as it enables you to move the colour around a bit. Weather etc... as you would any building (ie not at all if that's your bag or full blown if that's your want.)

If you choose to texture the MDF where the church is rendered I've tried various things and have found sand or pre gritted texture pastes looking too out of scale for my taste. I prefer a very light dusting of grout or cement powder over wet undercoat or thinned glue, (not mixed in you don't want a slurry but a fine dusting to give texture). This give a light gritty effect without looking like large stones.

The good thing about MDF is that it gives you a carcass to tart it up as much as you like. If you want ideas for more than just painting it check out some of the videos by Luke at Geek Gaming Scenics/Lukes APS on Youtube.

[olicana]

When I want to make an MDF building less 'smooth' I like to use a thin coat that sticks to the surface without soaking in and that, once dry, has a zero chance of being chipped off.

The best stuff I have found is heavy body artists acrylic paint (usually out of a tube) applied with a fine hog hair brush. The effects are good because you apply like paint and it sticks to the surface like the proverbial. The acrylic has very little shrinkage: the depth of paint at the end is pretty much how thick you applied it wet, so you can put it on in a pretty thin coat. I don't care about the colour the acrylic is because I always paint the whole building after applying it anyway. I generally do the plaster work, with emulsion paint, ink washed, then dry brushed.

You can also use it, prior to doing the main 'plastering' to create small areas of brickwork rather than stick card bricks to the surface (which I did until realising acrylic bricks were quicker and easier). When it comes to applying the rest of the surface you just bring the 'plastering paint' up to the edge of the brickwork to give it a false edge around the brickwork, giving the impression of the surface plaster having fallen off.

Here are some scratch built MDF buildings and cardboard windmill made like this. Hopefully the first picture will show how little thickness is required to get a roughed up effect. Anyway, it's one way of doing it.

[FreddBloggs]

If you use a pigs hair brush, and tube acrylic, it is also worth getting just a bit of waste mdf and experimenting, you can get great stippling effect with a course brush and if you use an artists knife, a smooth but natural looking effect, rather then the unnantural flat the mdf gives.

And welcome Olicana

[DougM]

Ok, i have several approaches to mdf - so
1. building is wood... file the tabs flat, make sure connectors aren't exactly 90 degrees, add knife strokes for grain and stain
2. building is plastered, limited or no visible stonework ,... do 1 above, slap on adhesive tile grout
3. building is largely stonework.. spray adhesive, chinchilla dust and grout

[ochoin]

Some very useful tips.

I'd imagine my church is rendered stonework with brick corners?
The architraves ditto, stonework.

I'm thinking a light-grey for the render & darker for the architraves. The brick corners, I'm still thinking about.

I had to look up "chinchilla dust". I thought that someone might have been using a sausage grinder on the poor rodents.

Chinchillas are banned in OZ, of course.
We have enough vermin here already....(reminder: no politics on LAWS)>

donald

[goat major]

You’re are doing stained glass windows aren’t you ?

[ochoin]

You’re are doing stained glass windows aren’t you ?

I've been thinking of it.

As you know, you can't see very much from the outside - certainly little or no colour- & as the roof is fixed, all I'd need to do would be glue a smoky transparency over the ostensible SG windows.

donald

[Jeremy]

This is the Warbases mdf church I did using polyfilla and a GreenStuff Worlds roller. Cardboard roof tiles from Warbases

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