Redvers and Son Get Into Bushido

Way back at the beginning of this project, I bought some MDF terrain buildings. I completed the small rice stores but still have the temple, dojo and house to get painted up. I find painting MDF a chore, especially when there are plenty of lovely models to paint instead. But, you can’t put these things off forever, so time to finish off the temple at least.

Firstly, I had a look at some reference material. There’s plenty of pictures of Shinto shrines on the web, here’s an example of what I’m aiming for.

After sealing the shrine with an MDF sealer, I dug out my cheap acrylic paints and got to work. On the one hand, cheap acrylic paint is cheap and therefore cost effective for this size of model. But on the other hand, it goes on poorly, streaks and takes several coats, especially white

One positive from the streaking was that I quite liked the look it gave the wooden planking outside – it looked a bit more ‘wood’ like.

After the base colours of white, red and brown, I went in with some gold to pick out the door. This was tricky given the angles and the pillars. I used an enamel wash on the planking to try to pick out the boards and the recesses on the front wall. This had varying results….

For the roof, I went with a simple grey. I’ve applied some streaking with some thinned down enamels which provides a bit of variation.

I’ve varnished everything with a matt varnish except the wooden planking. I’ve left this as a gloss to try to replicate the highly lacquered flooring that you sometimes see in Japan and China.

Finally, some acrylic mud effect around the edges and a bit of static grass to hide the mdf base it is on and job done.