Wood grain on flat surface

[Harrek]

I need to make a surface look like wood grain.  There isn’t any texture done in the actual model.  Any searching I do always gives examples on textured wood surfaces.  So looking for any pointers on painting wood grain on a flat smooth surface.  Think a trunk and I want the panels on it to look like wood panels or boards make it up.

[Pingo]

Tutorial for 1:1 scale faux wood grain in houses. It relies on having a transparent, slightly thick brown paint / glaze: https://www.oldhouseonline.com/repairs-and-how-to/create-faux-wood-grain-finish

 

I do this sort of thing minis scale by priming with a medium wam grey, then painting over it with a transparent brown (Any of the siennas or umbers will do. Or a Reaper Chestnut Brown, probably.) as follows:

 

Take a small flat hog’s bristle brush, or else a flat red sable type brush that has been hard-used and the hairs slightly worn and separated. Dampen the brush and blot out most of the water. Take up paint thinly and blot most of it out. Test on a paper towel until instead of one smooth wide brushstroke it breaks into many tiny lines. At that point draw it over the grey underpainting to create wood grain.

 

 

[Sibling]

I found one by vince venturella but I haven't tried this myself. He is painting a bit of flat plastic or something to have a wood grain.

 

https://youtu.be/VDeaCMaqhjU

 

Ninja'd by the best  I like Pingo's stuff better, mostly because the clip I found basically says you must buy a specific ink, and that doesn't impress me.

Edited March 3, 2019 by Sibling
update

[Harrek]

37 minutes ago, Pingo said:

I do this sort of thing minis scale by priming with a medium wam grey, then painting over it with a transparent brown (Any of the siennas or umbers will do. Or a Reaper Chestnut Brown, probably.) as follows:

 

Take a small flat hog’s bristle brush, or else a flat red sable type brush that has been hard-used and the hairs slightly worn and separated. Dampen the brush and blot out most of the water. Take up paint thinly and blot most of it out. Test on a paper towel until instead of one smooth wide brushstroke it breaks into many tiny lines. At that point draw it over the grey underpainting to create wood grain.

This sounds like a great method to try.  Just need to find a brush for this, off to Michaels I think.  What warm grey?  Something like Stone Grey (9086)?  Keep in mind I have Reaper paints.

Edited March 3, 2019 by Harrek

[Cyradis]

I have been having some luck by painting my surface the generic brown I want, then loosely freehanding semi-parallel lines with a bunch of related-but-not-same hue/tone paint. Pingo's method with an ideally cruddy brush seems like it would do similar. 

[Pingo]

5 hours ago, Harrek said:

This sounds like a great method to try.  Just need to find a brush for this, off to Michaels I think.  What warm grey?  Something like Stone Grey (9086)?  Keep in mind I have Reaper paints.

 

(Eyeballs them.) Sure. Or maybe even something lighter, like 9087 Weathered Stone.

 

Scraggly flat bristle brushes tend to be cheap, fortunately. At 1:1 scale there are specialists’ tools a little like combs and fancy brushes, but at our scale we just need something the right kind of scraggly. The sort of stiffness and separation of fibers that makes a brush less useful to paint with makes it useful for these kind of effects.

[Bloodhowl]

Found this for wood crates and such on scale models:

 

https://youtu.be/1IbGvKSwK4g

Edited March 3, 2019 by Bloodhowl

[cmorse]

On 3/3/2019 at 3:30 AM, Pingo said:

 

(Eyeballs them.) Sure. Or maybe even something lighter, like 9087 Weathered Stone.

 

Scraggly flat bristle brushes tend to be cheap, fortunately. At 1:1 scale there are specialists’ tools a little like combs and fancy brushes, but at our scale we just need something the right kind of scraggly. The sort of stiffness and separation of fibers that makes a brush less useful to paint with makes it useful for these kind of effects.

 

 

I think at one point I watched a how to video where they used and old toothbrush with lots of the bristles hacked out to do wood grain at minis scale.

[DanH]

DM Scotty does a lot of this type treatment.

here is an example of the technique.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1c40tSzxEp4

[Clearman]

This was just posted to YouTube

 

https://youtu.be/P67oL01urJU

 

[MoonglowMinis]

Just the thread i needed.  Have a bunch of Rum & Bones minis that i want wood decking bases for, and i don't like the idea of prying them all off to add something sculpted or glued.

[MojoBob]

 

These are bits from a very old 1/24 scale SPAD XIII that I started detailing, and never got around to finishing.

The plywood shelf below the cockpit coaming is the focus here: it's just a flat piece of plastic card with wood grain painted on.

I base coated it in a sandy tan to begin with, and then laid on some oil paint, thinned with linseed oil. I think, from memory, it was burnt umber, or maybe VanDyck brown.

When I had a reasonably complete, but thin, layer of oil paint, I created the grain by dragging across it with an old ragged stiff brush. You want to do this in one pass if you can; if you go back over an area that has already been done, it will probably just mess it up and you'll have to start again.

You can achieve a similar effect with acrylics, mixed with enough medium to make it translucent, but I found that it tends to dry too fast. It might be more successful if used with a retarder, but I haven't tried.

[Painting Dog]

MojoBob, that woodgrain looks GREAT! Thanks!

Edited September 14, 2020 by Painting Dog
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[Harrek]

That looks very well done.  I do want to do mine with all acrylic though as that is what I have and I don't want to start getting other paint types.