Make and Paint Realistic Shingles from Balsa Wood
8,136
Published 2023-04-07
Join my PATREON to support my work, and enjoy EXCLUSIVE content that you can use to help create your own projects:
www.patreon.com/SmolWorldWorkshop
Making shingles from balsa wood is one of my favorite techniques. In my opinion, nothing looks more like wood than wood itself, and balsa wood is a pleasure to work with. Balsa wood is readily available at most hobby and craft stores, and it's very affordable. You don't need any fancy tools to make these shingles, just a knife, wire brush, acrylic paint, and some patience!
In this video, I show you how to texture balsa wood to emulate an old, wooden, shake shingle. I show you how to assemble the shingles using super glue.
I show you how to paint and weather wood to look aged and old using acrylic washes and drybrushing. Then, how to add moss to the surface. I hope you enjoy!
Feel free to use this technique for any scale you're working in. This technique can work in 1:12 scale, all the way down to small, tabletop miniatures for wargaming, as well as model railroad layouts.
Chapters:
0:00 Intro
0:11 Texturing and Cutting Balsa Wood
1:11 Gluing Balsa Wood with Super Glue
1:48 Painting and Weathering Balsa Wood with Acrylic Washes and Paint
2:57 Fine Turf Flock for Moss
4:28 Final Result!
4:37 Patreon
4:59 Bloopers
Music:
Song: Southbound
Music by: CreatorMix.com
Song: Endless Lights
Music by: CreatorMix.com
All Comments (19)
-
Please make more tutorials like this. They are great
-
This is an excellent tutorial. In terms of scale buildings it's hard to beat this vid.
-
That's some great looking shingles
-
Amazing as usual 🔝
-
Love how you texture the shingles - great work! 🙂
-
thank you for uploading more videos, I still don't have a space for my workshop, but I'm learning a lot with you!
-
Great tutorial on “ how to” shingles, painting & weathering..plan to use this roof as I was stuck with not being happy with just “ tar paper look..
-
You do beautiful work!! 👍👍
-
Great Video!
-
Beautiful work! Will need to use some of these techniques in my next build! <3
-
That sir was a really great tutorial video, I don't think I will ever do buildings but I enjoyed your very easy style, best regards from a Kiwi living in Australia 👍👍👍
-
Very nicely done
-
Hey mate. Do you have a video about copper roofing?
-
What ratio do you use for the paint and water to make a wash?
-
Yes, shellac is a great idea to seal the balsa! I use a lot of balsa in my models and was trying to figure out a way to seal it before painting it, because as I found out, painting raw balsa tends to warp the wood, even with undiluted acrylic paints, so I was painting the front and the back to even out the warping. So just out of curiosity, washes and acrylics will stick to the shellac? That was my only worry when trying to figure out how to seal the balsa to avoid warping it with paint/washes.
-
Great work! What scale do you make to?
-
I think you mean "diluted" ... not "deluded" :) but other wise I LOVE your videos. Super well done. Great that you show the finished product at the beginning too. So many tutorials don't show you what they're working towards until the end. Thanks
-
Super glue? Is that just for the example? Or normal use for your builds?
