Hi. I'm drawing a blank in my little mind. I bought Daniel Miniatures Pinocchio and I can't seem to be able to paint a wood grain on the puppet. I base coated it with AK Interactive Ivory, but I'm at full stop on what the next step should be. I'd prefer a lighter wood tone. Has anyone painted this figure yet? This is the only image I've found. This is what I'm trying to achieve.
Thanks in advance,
Gary

Hi Gary,

My method for wood grain is to basecoat with a light coloured enamel (or acrylic, as you've done).
Then coat with a thin layer of darker brown oil paint (unthinned). The colour is your choice.
Finally, run a clean, dry, widish brush over it to create the grain. An older brush which has a little stiffness is my preference.
Try it out on some scrap to get the feel of it.
If things don't work the first time, clean turps will take you back to the basecoat.
Finally, just leave it for a couple of days until it's fully dry.
I've also used this method to create a corduroy effect on clothes.

Cheers,
Andrew

An alternative, with acrylics: undercoat in a sand or light ocre tone.
Paint the woodgrain in a relatively strongly contrasting tone, like dark brown.
Use some photos of real blocks of wood to get the grain directions right.
Ensure the grain lines have one sharp border and one softer one. This adds a lot of realism.
Cover everything with a series of glazes of a mid tone clour: yellowish for light wood, light brown for darker wood. Keep the glazes thin and continue until a pleasing contrast between grains and background is achieved.

Hope this helps.

Adrian

This may help.

here would be my approach :

basecoat with midtone : some beigebrown
paint wavy very dark thin lines suggesting the wood grain (use reference)
right next to dark lines, add very thin but very bright lines
dark wash to buid shadows
paint some highlights
medium wash all over to reduce the transitions
revisit the deepest shadows and highest lights

Many thanks guys! You've given me inspiration!
I'll test each method to see which works best for me!
Gary