Painting Tutorial “Sandbag Emplacement” by Elmar Fischer

I painted a second set of sandbagsrecently and took the chance to take some step-by-step pictures in the process. There are only a few simple steps affordable to paint the sandbags to look good and realistic.

Let’s start!

Step 1: Priming

The sandbags are cast in a high quality light beige resin. After washing the models and letting them dry the first step was to prime them. I used a sprycan and gave the models a thin coat of white primer.

Step 2: First Wash

In a second step the whole model got a heavy dark brown wash. Because I sculpted and textured each sandbag individually this simple and fast step brings the structure and the details out very well.

The next picture shows two pieces after a wash with Devlan Mud (Games Workshop).

For those of you without Devlin Mud you take the new Agrax Earthshade fom GW or Umber Shade Wash from Vallejo.

Step 3: Second Wash

After that the pieces got a wash with heaviely thinned brown acrylic paint.

This works best if you add a little drop of dishwasher to the mix because this reduces the tenson of the water to make the wash flow far better.

Comparison

In this picture you can compare the different different results done by the two washes. The left one was done with the thinned acrylic colour, the right got a wash with Devlan Mud. As a basis for the next steps the results of one washe is as good as the other.

You could even end the painting process at this stage and the models would look o.k. on the gaming board.

Step 4: Drybrushing

Basecoate the wooden part with a dark Brown.

Then I carefully drybrushed the pieces with a mix of beige and white including the wooden part.

Step 5: Third Wash

I intended to give the models a bit more contrast and aplied another wash.

This time I used a thinned down Devlan Mud (1 paint : 2 water).

Step 6: Weathering

In a last step I used dry pigments (Weatheringpowder from NOCH) which is available at our online store to paint the areas where the sandbags are damaged.

I used the coulour Dust. Mix some of the powder with clear spirit using an old brush.

Then apply the mix to the damaged areas.

After drying you can remove obsolete pigments using an old brush with some of the clear spirit.

That was the final step. I hope you enjoyed reading the tutorial and found it helpful. If you have any questions left send us an email.

Ciao Elmar