"It's a shame leaving Tabletop World unpainted" Topic

As the title says.

I was thinking recently as I was painting up my Tabletop World town gate, the psychology behind the hobby aspect of gaming and not being able to get stuff painted, built, or both. Or building something and using it on the tabletop but not painting it.

Of course there are numerous, countless reasons that gamers leave terrain or mini. projects unfinished.

This post is not criticizing that dynamic. We've all got unfinished stuff in one form or another.

But I have to say that it does really sadden me to see blogs where gamers have purchased buildings like Tabletop World and use them on the table unpainted. Spending all of that money on all that insanely gorgeous detail is just such a waste to me.

So I developed painting techniques for these buildings that not only preserve and help bring out that detail but also allowed me to paint them very quickly without sacrificing quality.

The town gate is my fifth Tabletop World terrain piece I've painted to date. And I think I've gotten a pretty reliable technique honed to fairly proficient level.

I am a firm believer that a liquid product like kids' Tempera paints are the absolutely best way and quickest way to paint the stonework. There is so much subtle and minute detail in the stones that if you paint it with actual acrylic paint you are almost guaranteed to fill in some of the detail.

So the solution is to use something semi-transparent that goes on like water. Tempera is ideal for this.

All of the stonework got a first overall sloppy wash of black Tempera mixed with water and alcohol. After that was dry it got an overall wash of brown Tempera again mixed with water and alcohol. Alcohol works as a surfactant and helps it to get into the deepest recesses and cracks.

The wonderful thing about Tempera is that it the colors dry very unevenly. And also the black Tempera has a kind of greenish/bluish cast to it. The end result is a super-realistic looking stonework that has all kinds of various shades and tones.

After the Tempera was dry all the stonework got a single drybrush of white craft paint. And that was it. I got the stonework done in little more than a single afternoon.

The rest of the model was nearly 100% Citadel Contrasts. The roof shingles were red Contrast, the plaster walls were Skeleton Horde brown Contrast, the timbers were Wyldwood Contrast, and the windows were a dark purple Contrast.

After the Contrasts were all dry, everything got either a tan dry brush or a white dry brush to bring out the details a little further.

Even the batter was mostly Contrasts. The metal cap and flag pole were Nazdreg Yellow, with blue Contrast on the banner itself. The only actual acrylic paints I used on the model were the white on the upper half of the banner, and Wargames Foundry silver on all the door and hatchway's metal fittings.

Two leftover sets of 40k decals on the banners completed the model!

I did this so much faster than the previous Tabletop World models I painted. There was very little precise brushwork here. Most of it is large brushes, except where I had to do more careful work like the silver on the doors.

And that was it. If you currently have any unpainted Tabletop World stuff on your shelves, I think my technique will help you get it painted fast and will have a satisfying outcome!

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Wow!!! That is a nice paint job.

Jim

Beautiful job, Baranovich! Also looks like you have a great gaming space to use it in!

You nailed it, thanks for sharing

This looks great! When I painted mine, there was no contrast paint to use. I like the idea of the tempera paints. They came out nice. I had a lot of the buildings to paint a while ago, because the sat on the shelf being unpainted on a shelf for a few years. My solution for the brick work was to get the quart sample size house paint, all the shades of a brown that looked like the stonework I wanted. The stone painted up fast, but the rest was time consuming. I like the way the contrast worked on your buildings. I will give that a try when I get my next buildings from the Kickstarter graveyard sets.

Very impressive. This is how I want my models to look. I have these on my list to buy. This may hurry the purchase. Beautiful detail.

Wow my friend that is a great paint job!

Perhaps it would be a good idea to share the formula of paint:water:alcohol ratios. And maybe specify denatured alcohol rather than drinking alcohol! ; )

Indeed, very nice stonework.

I agree with Blasted Brains…we need the formula! Excellent work, Baronovich!

There are some gtreat tips here. Love the outcome. Hope to see more buildings completed.

Wow! Yes, that is very nice, indeed! Want to see more! Thanks!

What fantastic work! Great idea to use tempera and alcohol.

Great work -- I have to say I am sort of a paint snob so don't use unpainted terrain

Love your advice

Thanks for the feedback guys, much appreciated!

To be honest, it was a very rough ratio of paint/water/alcohol, I definitely didn't measure! I would bet it's safe to say though that it was close to about 70% Tempera, and then maybe 15% each of water and alcohol. Usually when I work with Tempera, I roughly fill the cup or container about 3/5 to 3/4 with Tempera and then 1/4 each of the alcohol and water. I kind of just eye it at this point.

The more water and alcohol you add, obviously it's going to be weaker. All depends on the specific thing you are actually painting.

If you want to see this technique in action first-hand, this is the fellow that I learned it from. Name is Mike. He used to run an amazing Youtube channel called "Terranscapes".

Here's a video he did where he was painting a cliff and cave terrain piece as a commission for one of his customers:

YouTube link

In this particular video, he's painting a natural stone cliff face and not castle stones, but the principle is exactly the same. His mixing ratio might be a bit different from mine, and I think he mentions that he doesn't actually add alcohol to the mix but only water, and then uses the alcohol as a wetting agent on the surface. One other difference is that he coated the insulation foam in white Gesso and used that as his undercoat color as opposed to a primer. Mike also adds something to one of the mixes called "Jet Dry"? Don't know what that is, but sounds like it is something that aids in the Tempera drying faster.

Sadly, Mike stopped producing terrain videos in 2019. But he left his channel up so people could still watch them. I forget how I first found out about this guy, but he makes some of the best wargaming terrain I've ever seen.

The best way to get a good mix I think is to just whip up a batch and then when you apply it to the stonework, it should stain the surface, but a lot of the primer color should still be showing through. After both the black and brown were applied, the stones should all have some color on them but it should all be like a strong wash and not more than that.

I used GW Wraithbone as the primer color, that's an important step I forgot about. You definitely want to use an off-white or white primer, so it looks natural when it shows through. Gray primer would problematic for this technique I think, unless it was a very, very light gray.

Also, noticed one part of my post that contained a typo. It should say "banner", not "batter", lol.

Thanks, Baranovich!

@mjkerner,

Most welcome. Oh hey, I noticed that you read my reply about 11:01 am. I think you might have missed the video link I added to the post when I was editing it. Definitely check out that video, it shows where I got the technique from!

@45th Division.

Interesting that you mention using house paint!

That's a great point you bring up. The whole notion of "thin your paints" that is tossed around elite painting circles is quite a bit misleading and in many cases pretty much false.

Contrary to what they believe, you can most certainly use house paints and acrylic craft paints to paint finely detailed terrain. I have found that craft paints shrink down so much then they dry that it doesn't obscure any of the fine detail in Tabletop World buildings.

When I mention in my original post about acrylic paints potentially gunking up some of the detail, that was meant more as cautionary if it was applied too thickly. But I mean you can apply any kind of paint too thickly. Even GW or Vallejo paints can gunk up detail if too much is used.

But even so, I can remember painting my first two Tabletop World buildings with craft paints, and honestly I didn't thin them much at all. Added maybe a little water to help it flow better. But craft paints worked fantastically and didn't ever destroy detail the way that elite painters always claim they do when they do painting tutorials.

I seem to remember a while back a gaming convention I was at (might have been Historicon 2008) where a guy had painted several armies of 28mm plastic and metal Napoleonics using nothing but cheap craft paints.

And they looked absolutely GORGEOUS. If you didn't know any better you'd have sworn he used miniature paints. It's a total myth that the pigments in house and craft paints are too "large" and "chunky" for miniatures. 100% not true!

…one other difference I wanted to mention between what Mike did and I did was that I think he goes with just a single color, whereas I did two different colors one on top of the other. That was as I said to achieve different shades and tones on the castle stones, whereas he may have wanted more of a monotone for the cliffside.

It also appears that his mix is thinner than mine, he goes for a more subtle effect, whereas I wanted more coverage and color on the stones themselves.

Mike also goes back and rubs off some of the Tempera from the high areas of the cliff stones. Again, I think this was because Mike wanted the cliff color itself to be almost like a whitish granite type surface with very subtle gray shading.

Which reminds me of another interesting quality of Tempera. Even after it fully dries, it never actually becomes permanent like acrylic paints do. It rubs off very, very easily, many times easier than model paints would rub off. So it absolutely MUST be varnished.

Also, one very important thing with regards to varnishing. DO NOT under any circumstances ever attempt to use a brush on varnish over Tempera paints! When you wet the surface the Tempera will be re-activated and you'll smear your paint job!

Always be sure to use a spray varnish like Testors Dullcote or something similar!

Just to show you guys what a previous Tempera project looked like. Here is my Noble's Townhouse. With this one I used just the Black Tempera, and I remember using a much, much thinner mix on this then I did on the town gate.

This made the stones brighter and much whiter which looks good.

But looking at it now it doesn't have quite as much variation as I would have liked.

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WOW…

This is awesome.
I have really loved their products, and like MBA, I simply cannot afford them in the quantity I would like…

Amazing work!

Looks terrific. Thank you for sharing all this.

Answering a couple questions above:

Gesso is sizing or primer for paint on canvas; traditional gesso was hide glue mixed with chalk (there are many recipes actually). Nowadays usually what's meant is acrylic gesso, which is an acrylic primer. Except, some people with art school background say "gesso" when speaking of any primer. But anyway in the Terranscapes video, Mike is using Liquitex Gesso which is acrylic gesso. (Liquitex invented/was first to market with acrylic gesso.)

Jet Dry is a dishwasher rinse aid. Model and scenery painters add it to washes as a surfactant to reduce surface tension, so it flows into cracks better.

"Other guys are losers for not painting to my standard".

Beautifully done.

@forper23,

Wooooah, woah woah.

Show me anywhere in my post where I call other gamers "losers" for the way they paint their models.

I'm not dictating any "standard" of painting on anybody.

I'm far, far from being any kind of expert or master painter. In fact if you actually read my entire post, you'll see that what I did was mostly nothing but shortcut-style painting where I use easy washes and liquids.

I can't tell if you're just trolling or if you really interpret what I said as being critical of other painters "lower standards."

C'mon man, I want this to be a positive thread that helps other gamers get stuff painted!

@CeruLucifus,

Thanks for the explanation about Gesso, I did not know that. I actually used some Acrylic Gesso to prime some rock outcropping things I made a few years ago. I remember it applying to the foam with the same feel as white craft paint, which makes sense since it was meant to be a primer.

Baranovich, there are always asshats in every crowd; thanks again for your recommendations and the link!

Inspiring :-)

Perhaps next summer…

@branvich. Nah your models are good. A little too good to claim they're rush jobs and nothing special. Most modellers (including me) would give their left nut to get anywhere near that standard. I think you were understating your level of achievement which I found annoying.

nicely done and timely as I have a load of ruins I want to start work on. many thanx

I saw a youtube video from Terranscapes that said he's back. Good news

@Howler,

Most welcome.

Ah, unfortunately the video where he says he's come back is from November of 2018. That was after he had taken a temporary break from the channel.

His final goodbye video happened not long after. Here's a link to it. This is from April of 2019, which was the very last time he posted anything to Terranscapes.

youtu.be/Kzf10OYSLEE

Baranovich,

Thank you very much for sharing this information. It is very helpful and most appreciated. It takes time and effort to compose all of this. Tabletop World pieces are spectacular. I am guilty of letting mine sit for the simple reason I just do not want to detract anything from them by a less than optimal paint job. Therefore, I procrastinate and keep reading and watching videos trying to pick up more tips to feel comfortable tackling the task at hand. With your methods detailed above, you have me off go and I will tackle it. Sharing the details of your approach is in the spirit of this message board. Again a sincere thank you for sharing this. Anyone would be very proud to have those painted pieces in their collection. Keep posting.

Tony

Hi Baranovich, lovely work.
Technical question are you priming /undercoating before or painting directly onto the resin?

On 9-19-21 he offered the following about priming:

"I used GW Wraithbone as the primer color, that's an important step I forgot about. You definitely want to use an off-white or white primer, so it looks natural when it shows through. Gray primer would problematic for this technique I think, unless it was a very, very light gray."