Painting wood

[Sardoo]

I was lucky enough to have Mrs Claus get me the excellent Eureka guillotine set with assorted bystanders at Christmas. Before I make a mess of it I wondered if anyone could suggest a paint recipe to mimic wood? Thanks in advance for any hints!

[FramFramson]

My recipe isn't exactly that great, but here's what I do:

1) Paint a medium brown of some sort as your main colour. If you want a redder wood or a lighter wood, alter the overall recipe to suit.
2) Choose a direction for the grain.
3) Paint small semi-random lines along the axis of the grain you've chosen in a mix of darker brown, like burnt ochre, and your main colour.
4) Paint small semi-random lines along the axis of the grain you've chosen in unaltered darker brown.
5) Paint small semi-random lines along the axis of the grain you've chosen in a much lighter cream or beige.
6) Use a warm brown ink glaze to unify all the lines with the middle tone.

Example (with a redder, slightly darker base):

[Michi]

I paint it black after priming. Then I mix Vallejo 72040 leather brown and 72043 beasty brown to match an oiled oakwood tone. I paint rogh streka of that onto the black. I add some white to paint more lighter streaks over them and add even some more white to the mix to get a three tone wood grain. I apply a wash of very watery black paint. This makes the newly looking wood silvery/greyish and dull like weathered wood. You can apply a final light grey drybrush, but I usually donīt:

[Sardoo]

Thanks for the hints. The results of both your labours are really impressive!