You have built a mountain but are unsure how to go about getting color on it so it looks natural.
The coloring on the mountain is going to depend on the season you are modeling your layout in. If you are doing fall, then you won’t want your mountains to have a lot of greens. You would want shades of red, oranges, and yellows. If you are doing winter, then whites will be your focus with lots of bare branches.
Whatever color you choose, you want to start with a dark base color. I don’t know if you took art in school, but if you did, remember that you always start with a dark color first and lighter colors on top.
A dark colored base first, and you should cover the whole mountain. Then mix a lighter color with your base or add some white to lighten the base up.
With the lighter color, you are just painting the more exposed areas and not the under crevices. Imagine the sun shining down on your mountain—where would your shadows be? What areas are being illuminated by the sunlight? This should be your guide when applying lighter colors. Stay consistent with that idea when painting. When you’re finished, you will be surprised at how nice the mountain looks.
The final touch on painting your mountain will be dry brushing a black or dark gray to bring out the highlights.
Dry brushing involves taking a paintbrush or a foam brush, adding black or really dark gray paint to the brush, and then using a rag or paper towel to remove the wet or excess paint from your brush. Then you simply lightly go over the mountain with soft, same-direction strokes. The damp paint will only coat the highest protruding areas of your mountain. You should reapply the paint to your brush after every one or two strokes.
When I first heard about dry brushing, I was not convinced that it would make much of a difference. But once I did it to my mountain, I was really amazed by all the little features it brought out.
So what do you use to paint the mountain? I have an airbrush, and it works fantastically on mountains, but if you don’t have an airbrush, the next best thing is a cheap foam brush that you can pick up at Walmart, Target, or any home improvement store. They are not very expensive; generally, you should be able to find a package of 5 or 10 for under $8.00. They are cheap enough to use them once or twice and then just throw them out. You can use a regular house paintbrush, but I find that they leave light brush strokes, and then you need to spend extra time cleaning them up after you are finished.
I would start painting my mountain on the backside for practice. That way, you can experiment with your technique. This way, when you do the most visible side, you have at least some idea of what you’re doing.
You don’t have to be an artist to color your mountain, but you do want your darkest color to be your base color and work lighter colors in from there.
Until next time,
Happy mountain painting!