HO Model Power Rooming House addition

[darrylhuffman]

I pulled an old plastic kit off the shelf to build as a second building attached to another building with an overhead passageway.  The plastic kit was the Rooming House in Ho by Model Power.  The same kit has been offered by many different companies over the years.

[Janbouli]

Goes to show what even a Model Power kit can look like when built by the right person. Wow.

[JimF]

Looks excellent, never know from pictures it's a plastic kit.

Any good "how to" tips for making all that plastic look like wood?

Jim

[vinceg]

Looks fantastic, Darryl. The extra loading dock platform makes a huge differrence. What color green did you use for the clapboard siding?

[darrylhuffman]

Jim,

Both the wood building on the right and the plastic building on the left look the same as I use the same methods on each.

I "paint" the walls first with acyrlic Burnt Umber.  I paint the walls with horizonal brushing.  But I vary the amount of paint on each pass so that the wall is not uniform in color.

After this had dried completely, I put a small puddle of off white and a second small puddle of my primary wall color.  In this case a green color.  These are also acrylic paints as are all the paints I use these days.

I have a large chunk of foam rubber such as is used in chairs for padding.  I tear off a chunk of this foam and use it to apply the paint in dabbing motions.

Using the foam rubber, I pick up a dab of the green and then a dab of the off white.

I then pound the mix into a piece of wood until I have just enough paint of the foam rubber to be able to apply the paint in a "dry brush" fashion.  But I don't move the foam sideways in a painting motion.  I dab the paint onto the surface of the wall in a vertical motion.

This method is commonly used by Fos Scale Models and Jason Jensen Trains on Youtube.

When I "reload' my foam, I reach into my first puddle of green and lightly pound the foam into the mixed colors started off with.  This give me a greener color this time.

I then use this greener color to apply more paint in the dabbing motion.

When this needs reloading, I add some off white to my mix of colors and repeat.

When I do this I am adding very small amounts of paint each time and each time the color is different.

I don't try to cover the walls completely but want some of the burnt umber undercoat to show through.

I then let this dry completely.

I then go back to my burnt umber and apply the tiniest amount of paint in this vertical dabbing motion.  Just enough paint to make it look like some of the green has worn off.

When dry, I apply my paper signs with Elmer's white glue and let them dry completely.

I then add a very small amount of the green mix over the sign so that it looks like some of the sign color has peeled off.

I then let this dry completely.

I then take an emery board and very, very lightly pass the emery board over the sign and the whole wall.

[darrylhuffman]

By brushing over the sign and walls with an emery board, it allows the undercoat (white paper) to show through which makes the individual board look to show through.  On the green part of the walls, (hard to see) this allows the burnt umber to show through a little as well.

When this is done, I use the foam method to apply a little light earth color at the bottom of the wall.

As for the green color itself, I used Ceramcoat Leaf Green and Apple Barrel Antique Parchment.

As the the doors, windows and trim, I painted them all first with the burnt number and when dry, applied the Antique Parchment with the sponge.  I applied the off white lightly to allow plenty of contrast to the green.

[darrylhuffman]

Hard to see the door with the guy standing in front of it.  Sorry.

For the door I painted the door a very dark grey and let dry.

I then applied my mix of green and white to the door.

I let it dry for about two minutes and then put some blue painter's tape onto the door and firmly pressed down on it.

I then removed the blue tape which took most of the green off the door sides but left the green mix in the the small panels.

This helps it look like I spent a lot of time carefully painting the door.  But I didn't.  Quick and easy tip.

[darrylhuffman]

Final thoughts about the walls.

I usually use a soft brush to apply a black stain onto the walls.  This stain is black ink mixed in alcohol.  No formula.  I just add black ink until it looks right to me.

When I apply this stain, I lay the wall flat and then lift the bottom edge a little so that the stain gathers in the "shadow" between overlapping boards.  I don't brush the stain on, I let gravity draw it down onto the flat wall.

I try to simulate the shadow shown in this photo of clapboard siding.

This shadow is readily seen in clapboard siding in the direct sunlight.

When I build board by board in O scale, I paint the bottom of each board black to try to show this shadow.

Hard to do in HO.

After the black ink and alcohol stain is dry, I very lightly drybrush the painted siding using downward vertical strokes so that I just highlight the very edge of the boards.  If I can see the drybrushing, it means I added too much.  I try for just a hint of highlights on the edge of the boards.  I use the off white that I use in the trimwork on the structure.

[darrylhuffman]

If you look at the earlier photo of the man standing in front of the door, notice the wall to the right of the man.

You can see the dark shadow under the bottom edge of the planks and also the faint white drybrushed onto the edge of the green boards.

[Janbouli]

Thanks for this thorough tutorial Darryl.

[postalkarl]

Hey Darryl:

You did a beautiful job with this kit. I love the addition and by-the-way it doesn't look like plastic at all.

Karl

[darrylhuffman]

Janbouli, Karl,

Thanks for the kind words.  I do appreciate them.

I was surprised at how well the plastic kit matched the wooden structure.

Now to work it into some sort of diorama.

Darryl

[ACL1504]

Darryl,

Very nice kit bash, well done.

Tom

[darrylhuffman]

Thanks Tom.

Darryl

[NEMMRRC]

Those shadows do give the model plenty of definition. Great tutorial.


Jaime