A while ago I posted that I had received some docks from Galladoria Games. Painted them off and on over the holidays, and recently just finished them.
I wanted to go for the look that I see when I am on the water – that is, sun-bleached wood rather than a nice brown. I happened to mention this on the Dwarven Forge forums, and another poster – William – was kind enough to point me toward a TableTopWorld painting tutorial on doing that exact look, on one of their carts.
I studied the tutorial, and it was 9 or 10 steps and used an airbrush. Looked awesome, but their stuff has a bit more detail than Galladoria’s docks. That is not a knock on Galladoria – the docks are great. It’s just that TableTop is the best in the business for detail on their buildings and accessories. For my purposes, it did not need that many steps.
So I took their process and simplified it a bit. I am pretty happy with the results. Here’s what I did.
The TTW tutorial had a dark gray with a blue tone as the primer base. I decided I would go with that look. I found a nice dark blue-gray, Krylon’s Anvil Gray.
It says Chalky finish, so I was a little concerned, but that ended up meaning nothing for my purposes. I went outside to prime the pieces.
Then I brought them inside. Very important step.
Next was the base coat heavily dry-brushed over the primer. That way, some of the dark primer still showed. This had to be a strong gray tone. I went with the Pokorny Paints Base Gray, with some of their Stone Edge Dry Brush mixed in, as the Gray was a bit too dark. I eyeballed the mix, but the ratio was about 3 parts Gray to 1 part Stone Edge.
Next I did a light brown wash over the pieces. This was an ink wash I did based on a posting by Les Burley from 10 or so years ago on the Dakka Dakka forums. The idea is to give it just a faint brownish tint.
This was followed by the light gray dry brush. I used Craft Smart Gray from Michael’s.
Next step was to paint the ropes around the pilings. I used the Stone Edge Dry Brush, using a dry brush technique so the shadows of the braid would show. Then I hit the nail heads with bronze to break up the monochromatic look.
Lastly, I painted some algae around the base of the pilings. This Pokorny Paints Moss Green, drybrushed.
And then I called it a day.
The colors in the pictures are a little bit off, owing to the fluorescent lights, but it does capture the sun-bleached wood look that I was going for. Pretty happy with the result.
These are the paints I used, minus the brown ink, which I forgot to include in this family picture, and it barely registered, anyway.
To anybody looking to give a more natural look to their docks, I hope this helps! Please leave complaints below!