Painting a Medieval village

My boss Jasper told me my blogs have been a bit 'grey' lately. True, I've been doing many conversions with plastic. For this blog I decided to take his advice and add a little colour to my work and give me some cool-looking scenery. 

The magazine was sent some of the excellent Medieval buildings by Debris of War. My goal was to make some awesome-looking buildings for my medieval games. The question was, however' could I get them to look as good as they were on the Debris of War website? The picture above is one taken from their site. I thought I could probably attempt to match the colours, but then the obvious occurred to me, why not just ask Tony at Debris Of War what colours he used?

Tony was very kind and immediately replied with a list of colours. In this guide, I will include the list of colours he suggested and the substitute colours I ended up using.

Tony started with a grey spray primer and then a light coat of white spray primer on top, to give a Zenithal effect.

The logical place to start was the thatched Roof. Tony used Vallejo 877 Goldbrown, then with a dry brush mix of 877 and 951 white. This was followed by a diluted Army Painter Soft Tone wash over the whole roof and then Army Painter Strong Tone wash applied along the horizontal lines of the thatch.

I matched those colors but used different washes. I used Vallejo European Dust as my Soft Tone stand-in. I diluted it a little with medium.

Tony did his Wattle and Daub panels using Vallejo 766 cream white and then a dry brush mix of 766 and 951 white. I did not have any of the Vallejo cream colour to hand, so I went with a Vallejo 917 Beige with a touch of 918 Ivory.

Tony used the Lifecolor Weathered Wood set for the woodwork, finished off with a coat of Army Painter Soft Tone wash. I didn't have that to hand, so I opted instead for Vallejo 921 English Uniform with a touch of Vallejo 877 Gold Brown. I diluted this with a medium to give it better coverage. I used a diluted Strong Tone on the woodwork to make it stand out.

To finish off, Tony used a coat of Army Painter Soft Tone wash on the walls and a mixture of Soft Tone and Strong Tone together in a diluted mix on the whole roof. Strong Tone was used to reinforce the horizontal lines.

I dry-brushed a few highlights on the roof and picked out the wattle and daub with a dry brush. Finally, I painted the base an umber brown. All it needs is a drybrush on the ground and a few tufts to be added around the building.

This was fun! While not an exact match to Tony's original, I think I have a useful addition to my Medieval collection. Expect to see this building and others in future issues of Wargames, Soldiers and Strategy!