Anyone got a good, quick, simple technique for painting thatched roofs?
I've just pulled together all the medieval buildings I have to paint, and am now faced with 30 thatches to colour.
Help!
By the way, if your technique involves many stages ... or cutting the shoots of kuthimmani tekknoow to lay on as "real thatch", remember I can only manage to process three instructions before falling into a minor stupor.
Thank you in advance.
Are the thatched roofs already 'cast' and part of the models, Nobby ?
Or have you got to 'make' the thatch to fit onto them.
If the former, I would have thought a base coat of a 'mid brown' and then use a big brush to drybrush a straw colour over the top.
Alternatively a base 'straw colour' and then a brown wash over that.
But don't trust me...You know how little I get to paint nowadays.
Cheers - Phil
I'd go with Phil's suggestions for painting. I did dark brown base layer, dry brush of yellowish brown, maybe a pale highlight.
If you want more realistic go more grey than yellow brown.
(https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-swFkVeEIIgo/VxPkzgjIfnI/AAAAAAAAGFQ/zzlNWjmP2ygAYuIkRqqyaOsegNBRfHQJwCCo/s1152/IMG_0828.JPG)
The yellow roofed ones are saxon ones, the more grey brown russian peasant huts. I prefer the brighter yellow colours
I'd drybrush a grey-yellow ochre over burnt umber.
As the other chaps have said really. A mix of both looks good IMHO.
When I was schoolboy staying with my grandparents one of the games played in the car was to spot thatched roofs before the others in the car.
Over the liifetime of a roof the thatch goes from a sandy colour to brown to grey - a village would tend to have only one or two sandy colour, several brown and the bulk grey.
Badly tended thatch will have a wash of green through the grey.
(http://www.thatched-group.com/images/img06/homepic3.jpg)(http://www.stopstanstedexpansion.com/images/photos/Listed/Master/Old_Thatch.jpg)(http://www.fynetimes.co.uk/acorn/wp-content/uploads/2012/11/thatching2.jpg)
And we're forgetting Tory Blue (possibly available from GW). All Thatchers know that one.
Quote from: Techno on 02 May 2016, 10:46:54 AM
Are the thatched roofs already 'cast' and part of the models, Nobby ?
They're all bought from Pendraken - the TBM Drak Ages ones. All of them. Every one. except the ones that aren't. Which are very few.
I've just been to look at the ones in the neighbourhood ... well Frodsham way. They're a bit more like this ...
Quote from: Ithoriel on 02 May 2016, 11:14:11 AM
(http://www.stopstanstedexpansion.com/images/photos/Listed/Master/Old_Thatch.jpg)
I like Fred's work.
Thanks chaps. I may (or may not) post a photo or two if it goes well.
I use mid to dark grey with a bark brown wash and a lightish grey dry brush anad an even lighter dark green dry brush.
That's four stages; stupor on the way.
Multiple Choice
Paint them black and call it night gaming
Glue snow flock atop them and call it winter
Basecoat dark colour then highlight-drybrush light color, possibly highlight-drybrush again (but very sparingly) with a lighter colour
Get somebody else to paint them
Hmmm.
1, 2 and 4 have merit.
Odds are he's right ;D ;D
On the drying board.
Quite happy with these.
(https://farm8.staticflickr.com/7794/26280433533_95b1a06ab5_c.jpg)
(https://farm8.staticflickr.com/7627/26817426871_89acac1011_c.jpg)
I like those.
Are the coloured panels historical or conjectural?
Yes indeed, that thatch does look good.
Quote from: fred. on 08 May 2016, 09:02:01 AM
I like those.
Are the coloured panels historical or conjectural?
Little of both. I was watching a Time Team program when they said they suggested that these panels would have been brightly coloured in the Saxon times. Standing crosses, churches etc were all riotously colored, so why not houses?
They are just coloured as my fancy took. I have no idea what would have been real, but then again, I suggest probably nobody does.
Looks good to me.
Good sized village too.
I'm guessing red and green are a good choice as they are readily available as natural pigments. Yellow perhaps not so much, a light ochre might be more realistic. However, as you say, who knows for sure. Not even I was there at the time, ancient though I am :)
I like those, too !
Great job, Nobby. 8)
Cheers - Phil
Perhaps the yellow is a bit bright, though there are a number of natural yellow dyes. This is a yellow from chamomile
(http://www.wildcolours.co.uk/assets/images/autogen/a_natural-dyes-chamomile_0364.jpg)
Perhaps I should ask Techno if he can remember the way it was?
Mondrianville! :P
Quote from: fsn on 08 May 2016, 10:09:19 AM
Perhaps I should ask Techno if he can remember the way it was?
The rushes were bright pink, when I were a lad..
(Or was that caused by the effect of those pretty mushrooms we used to put in the food, back then ?) :P
Cheers - Phil
I was rather apprehensive about opening this thread considering the title.......
You shocking man! My first thought was my baldy head.
They look great Nobby.
As for the colours several of us went to a talk by Angus Mc Bride (osprey Illustrator) at the museum in St Albans and he had done lots of research into ancient Roman architecture and believed most villas they were all plastered externally and painted.
Also the team constructing Guédelon Castle believe that castles were highly decorated inside and often painted white outside. So I cannot see why you may not be correct in your supposition that they wee painted.
My thanks Orcs.
Conwy Castle was originally whitewashed and I remember reading several years back that it is believed that Hadrian's Wall was whitewashed and the mortar lines picked out in red. I've never seen that in a display game!
They look good
Take care
Andy
I thought the idea of painting the beautiful, clean structure of Gothic architecture was repulsive until I actually saw some surviving examples and discovered that it added to the effect rather than distracting from it. Sometimes it's fun to find one was wrong.
Even the beautiful Roman buildings and rather shockingly for us, statues were painted.
I think we are just used to the all white effect, but I think it would have look more like an Hindu temple ate the time.
From https://moco-choco.com/2014/04/18/true-colors-of-ancient-greek-and-roman-statues/
(https://mocochocodotcom.files.wordpress.com/2014/04/true-colors-of-greek-statues-athena-lemnia.jpg)
Quote from: Leman on 10 May 2016, 06:19:47 PM
You shocking man! My first thought was my baldy head.
Somehow I don't believe you..... ;D
I like the thatch on your buildings, fsn, it turned out rather well. As has already been pointed out humans have always liked to apply colour to everything so why not! As to bright yellow I thing the Native Americans of the Great Plains used it as one of their common face paints (but no idea how they made it).
The red and white checkered structure may have indicated the fire department for the early Saxon Air Force or perhaps simply a "hospitality" house that would have be easy to find when drunk. :D