My Painting/Flocking technique

Hopefully this is the right category for this post; even with selecting "English" from the language drop-down I still have to move between here and Google Translate for some of the names/buttons/etc. 😀

Someone asked for a tutorial on how I did my tiles, hopefully this may be useful. I should give credit to Black Magic Craft for adopting his technique for rocks (video link) and my Mod Podge sealer spray is from a few sources on YouTube (like this one).

A few tips first. Most of these are derived from experience (failure is a wonderful teacher 😉):

1) When you paint a "set" of tiles (hills, cobblestone, etc.), try to do the steps all at the same time. I don't mean you have finish all the tiles in one sitting, but try to do each step on all the same type of tile rather than finishing one or two completely and doing it again (i.e.; overbrushing a particular color on all the hills at one time, then drybrushing the next color all at one time). It's much easier to keep the colors scheme the same if you do each step on everything at once. Variation is fine (and more reaslitic), but if the overall color of a tile is too different from its neighbor, the effect is going to

2) When it comes to things like vegetation, earthen patches, etc., the adage "less is more" definitely applies. The way to see how things look is to regularly lay out your tiles together to see if the features you're applying look good or whether they overwhelm the layout. I ran into this with my "rough patches" as well as the lighter patches of grass. On the individual tiles they looked fine, when I put them together, the overall look was very "busy" (I ended up flocking over a lot of the rough patches because of that).

3) When you come up with a color scheme or technique that you may use again, write it down and be specific! It's one thing if you're painting an individual fig for, say, your D&D character, but for something that will be repeated (now or in the future), if you write down your steps and the material(s) you used, it'll be much easier to match things up later on.

4) I've been painting for years but something I always seem to forget is that your colors will darken as they dry. So if something seems a little too bright when you paint it on, wait until it dries before you decide if you're unhappy with it.

OK, so for the tiles, these are the materials I used. Obviously you don't need to use the exact materials (and may not be able to depending what's available in your area or country), but this should be enough to go on for equivalents:

Materials

- Earth Texture: Vallejo Dark Earth Acrylic 26.218 (spackle would probably work and be cheaper)

- Mod Podge: Mod Podge Matte

- Sealer: 3 parts water to 1 part Mod Podge Matte, add a drop or two of dishwashing detergent

- Paints (Americana and DecoArt are from Hobby Lobby; Michaels and Wal-Mart probably have very similar paints):

- Dark Brown Primer: Rustoleum 2X Ultra Cover Paint+Primer, Stain Espresso

- Lighter Brown: Anita's All Purpose Acrylic Craft Paint, 11014 Earth Brown

- Wrought Iron: FolkArt Acrylic, 925 Wrought Iron

- Grey Storm: DecoArt Americana Acrylic Paint, DA328 Grey Storm

- Tan: DecoArt Americana Acrylic Paint, DA173 Khaki Tan

- Yellow: DecoArt Americana Acrylic Paint, DA371 Golden Yellow

- Burnt Sienna: DecoArt Americana Acrylic Paint, DA063 Burnt Sienna

- Suede: DecoArt Americana Acrylic Paint, DA319 Burlap

- Off-White: FolkArt Acrylic, 427 Ivory White

- Brown Wash: GW Agrax Earthshade

- Moss Green: ScaleColor Acrylic Paint SART-31 (this is probably way too expensive for this; I just used this because I had it on hand and had never used it)

- Flocking

- Dark Static Grass: Woodland Scenics 2mm Dark Static Grass - FS613

- Blended Turf: Woodland Scenics Blended Turf Green Blend - T1349

- Medium Static Grass: Woodland Scenics 2mm Medium Static Grass - FS614

- Light Static Grass: Woodland Scenics 2mm Light Static Grass - FS615

Instructions

1. Print (obviously)

2. Create rough patches

   1. Apply [Earth Texture] in a few places on a tile for rough patches of earth or mud.

3. Prime entire tile with [Dark Brown Primer].

4. Overbrush base and rough patches with [Lighter Brown]. Note that if you are doing cobblestone tiles, you may want to paint the road black and then do this across the entire tile.

5. Paint rocks, rough patches, cobblestone

   1. Rocks

      1. Base coat with black

      2. Sponge brush: Overbrush w/[Wrought Iron]

      3. Sponge brush: Overbrush w/[Wrought Iron] + [Grey Storm]

      4. Sponge brush: Drybrush w/[Grey Storm] + [Tan] + [Yellow]

         1. Mix is about 3:1 [Grey Storm] to [Tan], with a drop of [Yellow].

         2. About 50% coverage

      5. Stipple with brush: [Burnt Sienna] in spots with brush, create iron-ish splotches and veins

      6. With same brush from previous step, lightly drybrush with [Tan]. Use this to help blend the [Burnt Sienna] into the rock.

      7. Very lightly drybrush with [Suede].

      8. Light highlight the edges with [Off-White].

   2. Rough patches

      1. Highlight with [Suede].

   3. Cobblestone

      1. Base with black.

      2. Overbrush with [Lighter Brown] (if you haven't already done this).

      3. Overbrush with the mix from step #5.a.iii.

      4. Drybrush w/[Grey Storm] in varied heaviness.

      5. Very lightly highlight with [Suede].

      6. Hit a few spots here-and-there with some blended [Brown Wash].

6. Apply flocking

   1. Apply thinned PVA glue or [Mod Podge] to areas where flocking needed (I prefer straight Mod Podge myself; for me it seems to work a little better than PVA).

   2. Sprinkle on a mix if grass and turf (1:1 ratio of [Dark Static Grass] and [Blended Turf]) and let dry overnight.

   3. In patches here-and-there put a 1:1 mix of [Medium Static Grass] and [Light Static Grass]. Make sure not to go too heavy and go lighter on the edges of the patches to help blending.

   4. Spray turf again with [Sealer]. Let completely dry (probably 24 hours).

   5. (Optional) If the light patches are too light, dry brush a slightly darker green to them, like [Moss Green] or whatever works for you.

7. Add additional terrain features; brush, weeds, wildflowers, etc. Available from Woodland Scenics, Army Painter, Vallejo, etc. Again, less is more, and be careful not to put them on areas where you might put other terrain features (scatter terrain, buildings, etc.). I typically put my basing materials on/near rocks, at the edges of a road, or other places where I'm not going to place a tower or a peasant hut.

8. Hit the whole thing with two coats of Krylon matte (not done earlier in the process since the glue from earlier adds shininess). This might not be necessary if the spray you used covered the non-flocked areas as well and isn't shiny.

9. Done!