Snowed in? Build a temple! (Part 4)

    The build is essentially complete after this stage. Only the flocking and interior need to be added.

For some reason, I was really worried about this stage. I had a feeling that the styrene brick pattern would be difficult to paint and make it look realistic. I planned on painting the mortar a light tan color and then dry brushing the reddish-brown for the bricks. Just about all the dry brushing I'd done before typically featured a lighter color atop a darker one. This would reverse that, and I wasn't sure if my dry brushing would fill cover the mortar. I even read up some on painting patterned styrene brick on the Lead Adventure Forum. The advice I gleaned was to hold the brush at a 45 degree angle and to do successive lighter coats instead of bearing down and try to cover it all in one coat.

    The styrene brick pattern was not nearly the pain to paint up as I worried that it might be!

The advice worked like a charm, I was relieved to discover. I painted the mortar the same shade as the highlight layer on the sandstone -- Ceramcoat Dunes Biege. I figured this might work with the eye to tie the color scheme all together. I let it dry overnight, and then sat down and began my dry brushing experiment. The advice also said to turn the pattern around and dry brush both "up" and "down." I was very pleased with how the color -- Iron Wind Metals Red Brown -- stayed inside the lines of the bricks, for the most part. I tried to do a highlight color atop it but it simply wasn't showing up. So, I decided to see what it looked like with an ink wash. Wow! It transformed it completely, and made it look so much more realistic, I thought. It really brought out the different tones I'd tried to do with fewer or more layers of red brown dry brushing.

    Sand glued to the surface of the bricks represents the original outer surface of the temple which has fallen away in many places

I was so pleased with how it looked I almost abandoned my idea for the next stage -- attaching plaster to the brick walls in fragments as if most of it has fallen away. After staring at it for awhile, I decided to give it a go. I painted the surface of the bricks here and there in an irregular pattern -- covering maybe 25% of the surface, at most. I then poured sand across it, which stuck nicely to the glue. After drying for a few hours, I primed it black and let it dry overnight.

    Another highlight of "Dunes Beige" was given to the columns and the top trim, as well as the Hirst Arts stone pieces

The next day, I replicated the sandstone color scheme with Ceramcoat colors "Raw Sienna," "Spice Tan," and "Dunes Biege." After completing this step, I decided to go ahead and do another highlight on select areas of wood trim and Hirst Arts pieces on the temple. They had gotten a tad darker than I wanted with the ink wash, and felt they needed to be lightened up a bit. I dry brushed "Dunes Biege" over the upper portions of the Hirst Arts stone pieces, the wood trim, columns, and finally, the guardian statues and their pedestals.

Only two stages remain in this build. The next will be the flocking of the ground around the temple. The final step will be to print off textured paper to glue on the inside of the temple to represent its floors and walls. Who knows? Maybe I'll even construct and paint up a Buddhist or Hindu altar to be placed inside. Either way, the actual construction part of this temple is now complete! Stay tuned for the final touches...!