Painting MDF Buildings

[Mr. White]

About four years ago, I tried to paint some of that flat MDF terrain that you glue together. I don't have an airbrush so it looked like garbage. Too much flat surface? I dunno.

Anyway, I'm considering some MDF buildings, but still...no airbrush. Anyone have any success painting this sort of things without an airbrush? Tips? Photos?

[SJWi]

Jack, I have never worked out how to post photos and in any event my camera phone is playing up!  I have however made and painted quite a few MdF buildings. I think it ends up being a decision of how much work you want to put into them given the very flat, uniform nature of MdF. Some people render the walls with watered-down PVA or plaster to give it more texture but it obviously takes time.  You can also add sheets of plastic roof tiles to replace the rather bland, flat MdF ones. There is a thread on the "ancients section" detailing what someone has done to finish Sarissa's "Mediterranean Farm". 

My last efforts were the Warbases Roman Villa in 28mm and some 15mm half-timbered buildings I picked up from a Polish supplier. I simple assembled and spray-primed them with matt gray car primer.  I then painted the walls with a large brush and then dry-brushed with a slightly lighter shade to give some weathering effect.  Yes they don't look as good as some of the models you see where people have "super-detailed", but they certainly don't look rubbish.

I am currently building 2 Sarissa 20mm WW2 Russian buildings and plan to use the same method. For me it is a good compromise between "effort expended vs desired finish".  I have too many wargaming projects on the go to expend a lot more time on them than I do!     

[Ultravanillasmurf]

It depends on what they are supposed to represent.

I am not happy with my wooden buildings, the outbuilding is a bit featureless, and the dacha look a bit plasticky.


Slaters corrugated embossed plastic roof (possibly 4mm scale).

I actually covered a 4Ground shed with Slater's embossed plastikard, but have not actually photographed it.

More Slaters embossed plastic and tar paper made from tissue paper.


For materials such as brick, concrete, plaster etc, Plastikote Rust Effect spray (or similar - there is a "suede" spray available from one manufacturer which is recommended by 7mm to the foot modellers for concrete surfaces) is your friend.

If it is a concrete or fully rendered building, use filler (I use Milliput) to cover joins etc.


This is one of Sally 4th's pill boxes. It is the same construction (stacked slices) as this one.

But the surface has been smoothed with Milliput.

For the Vietnam buildings, I smoothed the joints with Milliput, masked and sprayed the building with Plastikote Rust Effect spray, then Halfords Grey spray Primer and Citadel Corax White.


Another building masked:


And "rusted".


For a Rendered/adobe brick jail (40mm). Use the filler to generate a thickness of render over the bricks.


One of the key things is to add details to buildings. If you are looking at modern buildings aircons are great.

Carlos has mentioned there should be a fan size hole in the wall.

A detailed description here (even if it is Plastikote and not rustoleum):
https://ultravanillasmurf.blogspot.com/2018/10/sarissa-small-terraced-house.html

[tin shed gamer]

I think you'd find it more productive to post a picture or two of your own work. As well as asking for ideas and tips.
That way you'll be able to advice on how to avoid and or correct the mistakes you feel you made.Or how to avoid any future pit falls.

Personally I don't even bother setting up an air brush for my own projects. Simply because I begrudge the amount of hobby time it takes up to use and clean(as I've virtually no spare time)
I've added a couple of pictures of some of my hobby stuff. I've used virtually the same method as Ultravanilasmurf on rendering( only several more coats.).
The temple walls are 90% straight out of the pot dry brushing onto raw mdf.
The whole town board is just paint straight onto the either cardboard or mdf.( even on the church as only the rendered areas have any resemblance of a primed surface.)
 There are pit falls to painting straight onto mdf as the paint cant either lift fibres from the surface of the board or merrily disappear into the surface of the mdf.(applies to cardboard as well..) I embraced these foibles and chose to use them in the styling of the buildings.
There's no clear way to tell you how thick or thin to use your paint .As it takes a little experience/experimenting with each model as every mdf kit has its own foibles.
But if your going to use thinned paints inks and washes.Then a hairdryer is your best friend. The simplest guide to how saturated the card and mdf are(even if your using a hairdryer) the colder it feels after the surface appears touch dry .The more moisture it's still holding and the closer to fibres lifting away or it de laminating.It helps judge when to leave it to dry properly before you. Warp or kill your model.

[fred]

Lots of good info above, a couple of pointers of mine.

For brick Victorian style houses, I had good success with dry wiping household emulsion paint on (I used tester sized pots) and used the foam from a blister pack as a ‘brush’ to do a large scale dry brushing. This was much easier to do before assembly.

For western style wooden buildings I have just painted on using craft paints.

I suspect an airbrush is a poor choice for MDF as MDF is so absorbent.

Adding roof tiles or other details to the roof generally improves the look a lot, as well as adding and 3D bits to the walls - just to break the flatness up. Some manufacturers provide these type of details in the kits - these tend to be the more expensive ones - and are often laser cut card.

[manic _miner]

 Sarrissa do a book which might be of interest too.

 Some nice buildings shown on here.

 I have a lot of the Carnevale game buildings to paint.Took awhile to build them all.

[Ultravanillasmurf]

In awe of Tin Shed Gamer's work.

I use rattle cans or acrylics by brush.

I have to include this picture. Tissue paper roof and rust effect walls. Bricks painted with a wet palette. Break up flat areas with stuff.

Ainsty pie shop (with the counter reversed).

[metalface13]

I haven't tried painting any mdf buildings yet, but I've owned my airbrush for a little over a year now. I went with a cheap starter option, about $100. I was hesitant because it felt like a big purchase and you can buy quite a few minis for that much, but I decided to take the plunge. It was totally worth it. I'm fortunate to have a work table to have it set up in my attached garage, and even though it gets to about 50-60 degrees in the garage I can prime minis all year long. Doesn't matter if it's rainy or sunny or hot or cold. I can prime in a large variety of colors and I have more control when I do a zenithal prime. It really doesn't require that much cleaning time if you take care of it properly and do some life hacks. In all I wouldn't say clean up time is any more than I spend cleaning my paint brushes after a session. I'm very happy that I bought it.

[tin shed gamer]

  I wouldn't be enamoured if I were you.
Precision isn't that important to me when it comes to my own table.I think the most important thing is to embrace and accept your cock ups and work with them .
The picture of the school show's plenty of cock ups. Which serves to remind me that working at speed with super glue and a cold isn't the best idea.(It almost guarantees sneezing at a critical moment ) The tiles and window would have been a doddle to fix/correct as I went along.Sometimes it's fine just go with the flow.
The other main tip I should have mentioned if your going to paint onto raw Mdf. Is to start with the shading working out to the main body of colour the just the odd patch of highlight . It does a couple of thing's. It's faster, it uses less paint, small areas of highlight light help to infur texture and detail at table top distance.

I like your use of tissue paper to represent a tar paper roof.

I use paper decorating/masking tape .( does need PVA to stick it to a surface. Otherwise it will curl and lift away over time as its own adhesive backing is low tac. As on the garage tar paper roof.(( I didn't use pva just a zig zag of super glue just not enough to hold over time)
For tar paper I add strips of card over the top of the tape to represent a tar paper roof. Then for a  leaded roof (as on the church) I place the strips of card under the tape.
It's a little detailing aid that would work really well with your tissue method.

[The Great Mahoo]

I haven't tried painting any MDF building yet (I've taken to buying pre-painted kits these days), but had a though. I had converted some old plastic buildings and decorated them buy printing out texture patterns and wallpaper designs and glued them on and liked the look. Could be done the same with MDF, just gluing the printed patterns with PVA glue.

Unfortunately I don't have any handy pics of the old buildings to show off.

[fred]

Yes, gluing printed patterns to MDF buildings works - there are examples around, including some using photo-realistic prints, that really look to be 3D

[Malebolgia]

Standard MDF buildings work well enough as they are with some weathering. That adds a lot of colour and sometimes texture. For example, I have used a lot of weathering sprays from Modelmate (now Dirty Down) on my MDF scenery to get more grime and colour variation in. Then some drybrushing and you get a great result already.
But getting a cheap airbrush (like this one: ) is really worth it to add some weathering and colour variation for that finishing touch. Here some examples:




Didn't use the airbrush at all on these kits, only used a Montana can for priming, weathering sprays, drybrushes and more weathering liquids.
You can see I added some details to make it all a bit more 3d and detailed, but that is optional.