Painting plastic to look like wood

personally, and this is just my way, paint the handel etc you want to look like wood in a light sand color (let dry) then use burnt umber/burnt sienna oil paint and apply over it. then gently "wisk"/remove the paint (without thinner) with a small brush until you see the sand color showing through. since oils are transluscent, the light color will show through and appear as wood!

here's is an example with my sniper's m-14 rifle

remember this is just my way...someone else's may be different. you can probably get the same general results with acrylics as well. here too is a link from another guy in the forum.

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Nice work there Camo!, also there is another method in the book, the basics of scale modeling. Also I have heard of people painting the wood area a light sand color and then give the area a light dusting of burnt umber pastel powder or some similar color.

Hope this helps, Jim

Sherman1111 wrote:

What is the best way to paint plastic to look like wood, on shovel handles, axes and such for tools on tanks? thanks

  Here's what I do for wood painting, I put a base coat of Testor's enamel Wood. After that dries I put a very, very thin layer(use an amount that doesn't even cover the base coat completley) of Tamiya Acrylic Clear Orange. Once that dries I make a wash of burnt umber and apply it. Then after letting it sit for about 5 minutes or less, I take a cotton swab and move the wash inorder to streak the wood in a wood grain direction(this moves the pigments which makes the dark grain areas.) Hope this helps, if not just ask.

Here's two pics from one of my latest builds, showing how the wooden areas of the guns come out using this process.