Vallejo Model Air colours for model buildings?

[Guest]

I'm stuck for a colour chart or a calibrated screen to view the online ones on, so can anybody please suggest Vallejo Model Air colours to get for airbrushing slate roofs, brickwork* and stone walls on model buildings? I don't need exact colours, only paints that are a good starting point from which to tweak the exact shades required.

*I'll need both "redbrick" and the more biscuit/pale orangey-brown types, and the stonework needs to be warmer shades (honey/pale brown-greys) as opposed to the colder blue/grey granites.

[spanner570]

Norman, don't waste your money using expensive paints to paint buildings.

Best way is to buy a cheap set of children's acrylics - usually in small tubes. These you can mix to your heart's content, and apply with a brush,. Keep the decent paints for plastic......

[Guest]

Hmmm. So OK ... it seems that Model Air 71.052 (German Grey/Anthracite) is a very good starting point for slate roofing and 71.288 (Portland Stone) is likewise for stone walling, but I'm still scratching for brickwork colours.

Nobody here using Vallejo then?

[Ian M]

Just go for the natural colours, sienna, umbra, greys, Browns, reds and yellows. Really the only tips to give, are to look at buildings and get a feel for the colours and how they blend.
Vallejo do some very good powder pigments that have things well covered.
There are no right or wrong colours just those that appears to be correct....

[spanner570]

Nobody here using Vallejo then?

I use Vallejo most of the time, but on my models.

My point being, why waste good money using expensive paints, when dirt cheap alternatives can produce better results at a fraction of the cost.

Be aware too, model roofs, walls and groundworks will use up vast amounts of paint, even on primed surfaces.

Just trying to help.........

[Guest]

I use Vallejo most of the time, but on my models.

The buildings are my models.

[spanner570]

Oops, I think I'll bow out of this. As I wrote, I was only trying to be of some help to you.

Compliments of the Season, Norman.

[Guest]

And to you Ron

[rickoshea52]

Hi Norman,

I have a 1/87 building half done on my bench. I sprayed an overall base of Dark Earth with a few drops of white added to lighten it (because I didn't have the shade I wanted readily available). When dry I picked out individual bricks with a fine brush using the above mentioned colour as a base but mixed in greys, black and white to vary the tone, I also used mahogany and rottbraun. Brick comes in a variety of colours and even varying shades of the same type of brick, they aren't uniform like the paint on a factory fresh vehicle for example.
Once I had the bricks done I applied a coat of gloss varnish then a thinned down sand yellow colour for the mortar washed over then wiped off when dry with a damp tissue.
My observations are specific to brick but the same can apply to roof tiles or stonework. I guess the answer you are looking for from the forum will be a little vague but that's just because the question you ask can have so many different responses depending on the person reading it.
At the end of the day you're just going to have to get stuck in and see what works and what doesn't, but that is half the fun and a great way to broaden your knowledge; ask the forum members opinions on what you produce after some experimentation.

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[Guest]

Bricks range from really deep red colour to light amber and yellow - if we don't mention the horrible ones used in the 80's with all sorts of weird colours... sigh.
My stables has the most fantastic colours I've seen in bricks so I've taken a couple of photos that I try to recreate when I paint and I use various different colours that I mix until I'm happy, but I try to not make more than three different colours. A wash in the end will create enough variation to make it look realistic. Realistic for me anyway...
I mostly use Tamiya paints.

That's not of any help to you but perhaps this channel on youtube is?

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCHemRX-aOiXTqu3ktrqsqVg/videos

It's the "1/35 Scale Diorama Builds" channel and he's a fantastic "brick, roof and stone" modeller who's doing superb realistic architecture!
You might've already seen his videos, but if you haven't he's talking about paint and colours in several videos and perhaps you can draw some inspiration from there?

I want to buy the moulds he's using one day and try my own English style house build. I'd love to recreate my old village pub from when I used to live in England... Those were the days

Anyhow, please post some of your buildings because I'd love to see your work and hopefully gain some knowledge and inspiration!

[Guest]

Rick and Jens, thank you both very much indeed for your helpful replies. I've searched YouTube for tutorials and haven't have much luck, but that 1/35 dioramas looks really useful.

I'm determined to achieve a reasonable level of competence with my buildings, but at the moment I'm on the baby slopes with plastic kits: the scratchbuilding will come later. Hopefully ...!

Thank you once again.

[Tyrel]

71.039 Hull Red, 71.040 Burnt Umber, 71.041 Panzer Tank Brown, 71.037 Mud Brown or 71.036 Mahogany would be my choices for a red brick base coat. Keep in mind though, that depending on the time frame of the wall most red brick walls were made up several shades of reds, browns and tans. When doing a wall I usually spray a base coat and then hand paint numerous different shades with Vallejo Model Colour.

This link will show you a couple of my walls.

Cheers

http://www.scale-models.co.uk/threads/brick-colour.28761/

[Tyrel]

Here's a couple more where I used grey tones.

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[Guest]

Ty, thank you very much indeed for that. Useful and inspirational!

[Guest]

All good stuff, and do remember, that surface differential will aid massively the realism - i.e. Most bricks, (with very few exceptions) are Matt, totally matt so any sign of satin is going to kill the realiism.