Speed Painting Brick Walls

Ok, I was tasked with painting 12 brick buildings ranging from one story to 3 storeys with gabled ends for the recent Prussia Invades England VSF games Skrapwelder GMd and I was an assistant GM for. Looking at a vast vista of endless seeming brick walls, Debs chimed in that foam rubber brush would work pretty good and headed out to get some large clean ones. Here is a picture of a primed couple of wall sections as this article is being written after the con was over but are fairly representative of a one story building wall.

Debs returns with not foam rubber brushes but a foam Roller! It is 4 inches across, the paint was put in a glass casserole dish to allow it to be rolled around and coat the roller lightly but completely. Then Debs and I swapped off as we Lightly rolled the first coat on the buildings that were assembled and primed when they arrived on our painting table along with something like "sorry to get these over here 36 hours before we leave for the con..." heh. In only 20 minutes we had all the brick work on the 12 buildings coated twice.

Here is a wall section with a couple of passes back and forth across the brick wall, LIGHTLY rolled, do not press or you will fill all the mortar lines. The window frames and all the surfaces was of course painted in the brick color. which after the wall sections dry you can go back and color the window frames and door ways the colors you want. After the brick facings were done, we used Gray to do all of the slate roofs in a few minutes also. Window and door frames... well we worked fiendishly to get as many done as possible as well as some of the larger interior walls of the factory buildings with large open doors to improve the overall look of the building by not having a white interior wall decor.

Here is a smoother style of brick wall that most of Skrapwelders buildings are made from now. Again, Lightly rolling did the coating quickly. Should you want a fuller or deeper color of red, simply wait for the surface to dry and roll again till the color depth is achieved. Clean up of the roller takes running water and squeezing the roller under the running water till its color is back as close to white as possible, let air dry.

Windows, some of them that I had time got a thin white wash spread around on the panes with the wall flat and allowed to dry before painting the window casings. Foundation footings and some arches got quick period colors applied to meet my 3 color rule ; Things look better with 3 or more colors. And there you have it.

Stone Walls, slate roofs all paint with the roller fast. You can use a darker color on the stones and slate, then lighten and roll lighter touches to highlight to boot. Going to try lapsided wood walls and shingle roofs next.