Stop ! this is not referring to making plastic look like wooden fences or posts, I would like to know if anyone can tell me, on an already made brown plastic hull that's suppose to be made of wood, of course I refer to the 1-72 Viking boat, on a test piece using varied coloured paints simply doesn't do it, weathering also doesn't come up to much on this scale, at the moment I am scratching my head - so please, if anyone has some good ideas how to make a 1-72 wooden boat look like wood rather than a 1-72 wooden boat that's been painted, please let me know.

The above model has been built by a German bloke, in fact this is the only completed model I have come across so far of this Emhar 1-72 Viking boat, if and when my model arrives and looks only half as good as this, I'll be happy, the hull was in question, it looks wooden rather than plastic painted, I don't read German and that site to ask a question you have to sign up.
http://www.modellboard.net/index.php?topic=29730.0
The above is the web-site.

Hi Alec!

Although I haven't yet tried this out, I have theorized that artist's acrylic tube paint applied with a coarse bristle brush in a thin coat should dry to a textured, linear surface like raised wood grain you get on other plastic models with simulated wood grain. Then it would be a matter of applying the base color coat and using washes to emphasize the wooden look.

It's sort of like applying your own zimmerit on a panzer, but the masking for each plank would be extensive.

Another method would be applying thin bass wood planks over the plastic, thereby cladding then entire surface of the model with real wood.

--Karl

Am afraid you will have to, at some point , start incorporating oils to give the extra depth , specially in wood representation.Take a look at the DKM Bismarck comments , i have posted at the bottom some close ups of various decks of some builds of mine specifically showing deck painting.Also if you have raised details (wood grain) mostly this is common in bigger scales like Heller's sailing ships , a bit of dry brushing helps too.

The WW1 biplane guys have an arsenal of tricks up their sleeves for doing woodgrain. try doing a creep about on the early aircraft forum over on aeroscale,or even ask some questions ...theyll be happy to give toy a ton of info.
Ive always used artist oils over a clearcoted(future ,or Kleer) linen colour. The future allows more of the zimmerit feel...but many people use acrylics here too with great success

you mean, something like this?



Let me know if this is what you want and I can tell you in detail what I did (can end up being on the lighter side)

Here are some plastic ration crates that I tried to make look like wood. I'm fairly happy with the end result. Let me know if you want more information.

Simulating various kinds of wood by Bob Letterman
Wood Grain For Dummies! by Terri Werner
Easy Wood Grain Effects by Rowan Baylis

Yes very much so, although slightly dark and just a little on the lage size, but very very close to what I am looking for.

Alec - you refer to my example?

In any case, here is what I do.. and you can vary the hue of the wood "color".

1 - I airbrush a couple of thin coats of model master WOOD (enamel) as a base.
2 - let it dry thoroughly
3 - Give it a nice coat of Future/Pledge
4 - Let dry for a couple days
5 - Now you can use oils to simulate the grain of the wood. I use Winsor & NEwton oils (I get them cheap at Michaels art supply store).
6 - Add a small amount of the oil paint on one edge/side of the base, and using a stiff square brush, "rake" the paint across the surface.. this is what gives it the 'wood grain" structure. Play around a bit; the great thing about this technique is that the paint is 'wet", so you can wipe out what you dont like and start again. You can even flick your wrist a bit at the end of one stroke to create a "whorl".
7 - Vary the shade by using different oil paints. Burnt Siema, burnt umber gives you different results:



9 - Once you are happy with the result, let dry for a few days (main drawback of the technique), seal with another coat of Future/Pledge and youare set to apply decals (nameplate) or dullcoat a bit to reduce the shine.

hope this helps!

Thank you James.