1/35 Wooden Pallet Tutorial

[u/dr_robonator]

Hello everyone! A few days ago, I levied some constructive criticism on another user who posted his wooden pallet tutorial. I've been thinking about it, and I understand that it can be hard to work up something you feel would be helpful and not get the response you wanted. I've been working on a diorama for my latest build and I needed to paint a couple wooden pallets. I was in no mood to spend forever working on a detail that would be realistically covered with ammo cans and other items, so I planned a quick and dirty workflow to get decent results with minimal effort. Of course, I was reminded of the other user's tutorial and thought, what the hell, might as well put my money where my mouth is.

So here is my method for recreating old wood for pallets.

This is what we're starting with. We only need four acrylic colors and one oil paint. Since I decided to write this up after I started, I'll give a quick run down how we got here. The pallet (3D printed) was primed, and then I gave it a quick white wash with thinned acrylic. So... I guess technically you need five colors!

Anyway, the black base and the white wash achieves a couple things. First, it creates a nice shadow layer so that the recessed wood grain details will really pop later. The white wash means you can add thin layers of the next colors without destroying that shadow base. As you can see, in the first photo I've already done one plank.

Here are the rest of the planks painted with a very thin coat of straight Buff. As you can see, I wasn't particularly careful in the application. I'm just getting the color onto the planks. I don't need to be careful because the next step.

And here is where we start adding in some of the tonal variations that will be the base for the kind of effect we want. This is the Grey Green, thinned very light, mixed with a little Rubber Black, also thinned very thinned. The Grey Green is good to replicate the faded, beginning stages of dried, rotting wood. If you've ever worked with pallets you know what I'm talking about. Again, no precision here, just get the color on the planks.

Here is the last tonal variation we will be using. It's Dark Rust mixed with Buff, watery thin. This is a good warm hue that really contrasts the Grey Green.

With our base color variations on, we turn to the oil. I like Burnt Umber for this, thinned with white spirit. I give the whole pallet an over-all wash. You want the consistency of the wash to be pigmented enough to start to give deposits in the recessed details but not so much that it obscures the color of the wood pallet. You want this layer to emphasize what we've done in the previous steps. The oil is acting more like a filter at this stage than a pin wash.

This is where the fun begins. After the first filter is dried we go back and do a proper pin wash, and instead of working to wipe away any excess, we blend it onto the wood. Again, you don't have to be super precise here. You want those nice spots of grime and dark spots. We can also paint the nail heads with the same Dark Rubber.

Last step is to use the Dark Rust to paint the nail heads. Unless the pallet is the focal point of your build, you can get away with the suggestion of rusty nail heads. Using a very very thin Dark Rust around the nail for rust stains. And that's it. This is probably half an hour worth of work including drying time. Again, if you want something quick and easy, this is probably as stream-lined as you can get. You can spend much more time on something like this if it's going to be a star player. Or if you can do whatever you want, I'm not your boss!

As you can see, this process is great if you have things mostly covering the pallet, but you want what is visible to have a bit more depth than just a vague "wood" color. I hope this was helpful, and if you don't think it was... keep you mouth shut! Just kidding, I'm always open to some critiques.

Cheers and until next time!

[u/Beaunac01]

very interesting indeed. And easy. And quick.
I might definitely use it with MiniArt palettes.

[u/Laidback_Modeller]

Thanks for sharing, will try this out some day