Sarissa Mediterranean Village

by Derek · June 5, 2020

I got an order from Sarissa a few weeks back. One of their Mediterranean Villages and a copy of the Guide to Making and Painting Laser Cut Mdf Model Kits, by Gary Faulkener. This is a truly splendid book with all sorts of useful ideas for wargamers wanting to use mdf scenery. I’ve been making and painting mdf kits for several years now, but I’ve learnt an awful lot from the book. I can recommend it unreservedly.

I decided I’d try out some of the new techniques I’d learned from the book whilst I was making the village.

Normally I’d put some sort of texture on to the walls, using chincilla dust or perhaps filler. But Gary’s book has a section on how to get your buildings looking textured using dry-brushing. I wanted to do these buildings quickly, they’re for my club rather than myself, so I thought I’d give it a go. You can see how it worked from the pictures below and I was extremely happy with the results.

The other thing that caught my eye was the use of watercolour paint pens to apply ink washes very accurately, so I tried that out as well.

Here’s how I did it.

1)I glued all the mdf together.

2) slapped on a first coat of Raw Umber acrylic paint

3) a heavy dry-brushing of Neutral Grey

4) another grey dry-brushing, slightly lighter this time, with some some buff titanium mixed into the grey.

5) another dry-brushing, again slightly lighter

6) wooden gate painted

7) gate dry-brushed with neutral grey

8) dark shading added to the bottom of the wall using a watercolour brush pen (see below).

I missed taking a picture here, but what I did was draw a line round the wall just where it joins the base and then feathered the colour upwards using a wet brush.

9) base textured and drybrushed; static grass and tufts added.

I did the roofs using similar techniques. The wood roof on the left is painted neutral grey then drybrushed with progressively lighter layers of the same Neutral Grey mixed with white. The tiled roof is painted with Burnt Sienna and then drybrushed with progressively lighter layers of burnt sienna mixed with titanium buff.

The cross beams on the wood roof were tinted using a raw umber water colour brush pen and the shadow is a line drawn on using a black water colour brush pen which has been feathered down with a brush and water. The tile roof has been lined with a raw umber water colour pen.

Materials used.

Notes

I didn’t assemble the buildings fully before painting, it’s easier that way. The trellis frames and roofs were painted as individual pieces before being glued on to the rest of the model.

Those Winsor & Newton Water Colour Markers are not particularly cheap. If you want to find out exactly how useful tthey can be without spending too much money, you can buy cheaper water colour markers in multi-packs from Ebay or from craft shops such as Hobbycraft or The Range. Hobbycraft in particular seems to have them in their sales quite regularly. I have become a huge fan and have now got a pack of the cheap assorted ones and five different colours of the Winsor & Newton ones. S