Wargaming | Modelling
Adobe Buildings

Most of my interests are Luso-Spanish so adobe buildings are very much the go.

Here are notes on three approaches to making/painting adobe buildings for wargaming:

Kerr&King: Painting Adobe Buildings
James Falkus: Painting Spanish Buildings
Roly Hermans: Making Spanish Buildings for Wargames

Muslim Village

Kerr&King: Painting Adobe Buildings

I wanted to update my Crossfire module buildings so I thought, rather than rebuilding a whole new set, I'd just repaint them more carefully. This is particularly relevant given I'm gearing up for using Crossfire for the Rif War, hence the Mosque in the photo.

Josh Kael has a tutorial on Painting Adobe Buildings on the Kerr&King site so I thought I'd try it out. The result is pretty good but I found the base colour too greenish and I think something more Ochre would be better.

Materials

Matt Black Spray Undercoat
Vallejo 70978 Dark Yellow
Vallejo 70977 Desert Yellow
Vallejo 70918 Ivory
White
Black
Vallejo 70826 German Medium Camo Brown (or GW Bestial Brown)
Vallejo 70822 German Camo Black Brown (or GW Scorched Brown)
Brushes

Process

Prepare the buildings. Either Make the Buildings or use commercial ones. Resin buildings need to be washed in warm soapy water before painting.
Undercoat with Matt Black Spray.
Slap on a base coat of Dark Yellow. Don't be too fussy about details such as brickwork and woodwork - you'll touch them up later.
Dry brush the entire building with a 50/50 mix of Desert Yellow and Ivory.
Dry brush the entire building with Ivory.
Light dry brush with white.
From this point be careful to avoid the adobe.
Re-paint all the details (doors, bricks windows etc) with Black.
Leave the windows black.
Dry brush the bricks with German Camouflage Medium Brown.
Dry brush the bricks with Dark Yellow.
Dry brush the woodwork with German Camouflage Black Brown.
Dry brush the woodwork with German Camouflage Black Brown with some Desert yellow and a bit of Ivory added.
Very light dry brush of both the bricks and woodwork with Ivory.
Flock any earth

P1040131_muslim_village.jpg (159672 bytes)

The Mosque is commercial but the houses are mine

P1040132_muslim_village.jpg (130487 bytes)

Different Configuration

James Falkus: Painting Spanish Buildings

James Falkus brought along some recently painting buildings to our refight of Albuera. I liked the way he'd painted them so he sent through instructions for Painting Spanish Buildings...

The church was undercoated with GW black undercoat spray. I then painted two coats of Buff (228) from Coat d'arms, which I bought from Black Cat Miniatures. It has a thickness that really helps when applying. After two coats I mixed the buff paint with GW white paint. I used this to 'highlight the building' but in reality only left an outline of the original buff coat. I subsequently decided that even this was too dark so added another coat by adding a small amount of buff to the white. This was the finished colour for the walls. For the roof I used terracotta (85) from miniature paints purchased from the games shop in Aldershot. I then dry-brushed the roof with GW white (very small amount on a large brush). The door and carving above it I painted as wood using GW scorched brown as I did with the window sills. My reasoning was they would look more run down without painting the door etc... with a colour like blue or green.