A Brick Building from the Ground Up - Part 1

I actually started testing the brick painting on a piece of brick wall from ITLA Scale Models. I have had one of their kits plus a couple of modules for it laying around for a number of years now. It was another one of my purchases for a layout that will not come to pass at this point so its a "spare". That being said it will have a purpose as a backdrop building for photography, same as the brick store.

Here are the two pieces that I experimented with colors on before moving on the brick store. The one on the right also has a coating of Pan Pastel Raw Sienna on it, the one on the left doesn't

I had already primed this building with a grey primer, specifically Badgers' Stynylrez grey. ITLA are laser cut wood models so you definitely need a primer of some kind on this for the ink techniques to work. If the surface isn't primer or at least sealed it really sucks up the ink. That wood is thirsty!

Step 1

I coated all the pieces with Titanium White from the Liquitex Acrylic Ink line (well, except the two pieces that were essentially finished). I wasn't going for particularly even coats of color, just wanted to be sure there was white in the mortar lines (I did add a drop or so of raw sienna to this mix, mostly to get a more off white color). Let it dry, longer than you think, its possible to "re-activate" ink if its not completely dry for the next step.

An example of the white ink just basically being smeared across everything. I have decided to paint the sidewalk separately from the rest I want to try an oil technique on it.

Step 2

With a "dry" brush of Raw Sienna ink dragged it across the surface after the white had dried surface. You don't want a full brush full of ink, if its really wet you can potentially re-activate the ink underneath and you are trying to stay out of the mortar lines. You are going to get some in the mortar lines (maybe even most of the mortar lines) and that's okay. Cover 90 - 100% of the surface at this point. Let it dry, but not crucial for the next step. Yes, I forgot to take pictures.

Step 3

Here we are going to repeat the process with the raw umber this will give us some darker areas, and if the first layer isn't completely dry then it will just blend together. I aimed for about 50% of the total surface are, but its up to you.

Looks a little rough now, but I think everything will tie together as I go along, much like it did with the brick store.

This finishes, the painting part of the operation. Pretty quick, relatively easy and gives a good initial look to the brick surface with mortar lines showing all the way through in some areas, which is what you would expect for an older brick building.

After all this I painted the rough stone at the bottom and the concrete bands. The rough stone received a similar treatment to the brick while the concrete bands just received a quick wash of a grimy black (I didn't right it down, better check to see what I used for this. Again, missed taking pictures, just to much going on.

From here its on to assembly.