How do I paint a wood effect?

Tools, Techniques, and Reference Materials Painting and airbrushing
1

Can someone enlighten me as to a method of painting a wood effect please? Im painting up the flooring in a 1:24 P51 Mustang and I want to simulate a plywood floor. When giving response in terms of paint to use please bear in mind the only paints avialable in my area are Tamiya, Humbrol and Revell, oh and I prefere if possible to use acrylic rather than enamal unless that is a problem.

Thanks

Antony

2

Heh Anthony,

SprueOne has a thread going right now regarding a Soviet Bridge layer and did a great job on the wooden planks.

Of course (in my humble opinion) the best way is to cut out the plastic and add wood!

Above is my 1/32 scale P-51 with wood floor boards added.

3

Thanks Suppresionfire. I have to admit that this is the very first time I’ve attempted to do anything that is not out of the box. I finally decided to pluck up the courage and have a go at scratch building a few items. So far Ive confined it to adding a few pipes to the engine. I gather from your photo that the flooring is flat? But on the one Im building its curved so I would obviously have to look at how to get it to retain its shape. The other item of course is that the original part has some mouldings on it which would have to be scratch built as well. Im not sure at this point if I would get anything like a good repro of it. (I guess you call that lack of confidence).

4

Nope my floor is curved as well. Kept the bulk of the plastic and just used really thin veneer wood strips securing down with a generous amount of CA glue.

5

I agree…the best way is to use real wood…I had the same problem with a Seiran I did a while back…no matter what I did the simulated looked just like that…simulated…so I went with the real thing. I used simple wood coffee stirers. Worked like a charm…trim as needed…sanded and simple wood glue. Then i used regular ol’wood stain on them…it brought out the small wood grain which of course visually enhanced the wood.

I was REAL happy with the outcome.

good luck

carlos

6

I made some “wood” decals. I shot pictures of one of my house’s plain oak doors. I then used Micro Mark decal sheets to print out the pics with my computer. I have used these for cockpit floor, prop blades, and a few other things.

7

Thanks guys. I think I shall have a go at using some thins strips of wood. The result is far more impressive.

8

I hop ethis will help. These are wood boards for the floor of a 1:35 rail car but the same steps should bring like to your P51 floor boards. The base colors are acrylic ( mix of Valejo & Tamiya ). The wood & weathering has been done with AK Interactive Weathering Enamels. These are a few pics of what is being done so far to bring the wood to life.

Images show the application of a wash mixed from AK Interactive AK023 “Dark Mud” that has been thinned to use as both a wash and a filter to harmonise the woods base colors.
Just a bit of progress today as work gets in the way.
These pics show how the portion of the boards closest to the edge of the flatbed have been damaged by standing water & mold.
In the first image, Humbrol White has been used to put down a base for water damage & mold.

The second image shows AK Interactive “Slimy Grime Dark” thinned and used to show some nasty green mold and mildew on the boards. Thinned mixture is transparent and gives a pleasing effect over the Humbrol white.

Third image shows AK Interactive “Winter Streaking Grime” being used straight from the bottle to darken up the very edge and add yet another shade of MUCK! Here you can see a bit of “Fuel Stains” to represent something leaking onto the wood.

So this is it so far. Let me know what you think of it as there is much more to do!