How to paint model brick buildings

I built several brick stone buildings for my layout and figured I share how I painted them. Several steps are needed, and it is honestly not my favourite part.

It’s up to you what colours you want to use and what result you’re trying to get. I wanted to get a brown-reddish type brick house, as it is seen frequently for industrial buildings.

I almost exclusively use Vallejo colours—most likely you get similiar colours from your favourite brand.

The first step is a full layer of Cavalry Brown (70.982) to create the base to work from. As the name suggest, it is brown, but has a slight red shade in it.

Now the challenging part begins. Paint random bricks with Hull Red (70.985). The majority of all bricks I paint in a different colour than the base, I do in this colour. For the other colours, I just paint a brick here and there.

Paint a couple of bricks in Burnt Umber (70.941).

To add some contrast, I chose a brighter colour as well: Orange Brown (70.981). Don’t overdo it—just paint a couple of bricks.

With all the colours applied, its time to add the mortar. I mixed Moltofill, Stone Grey (70.884) and water together. Make the mixture rather thin, so you can easily spread over your model and it doesn’t dry too quickly. Feel free to apply as much of paint (or an entirely different shade) to get the result you want. The whiter the mortar, the newer the building.

Then you apply the mixture on your model. You want it inside the cracks between the brick stones. Let it dry a bit, but just as much so you can still wipe it off with a wet cloth. Dip your cloth in water, and gently wipe the Moltofill off.

The result after wiping off the mixture. Be careful not to apply too much pressure as you wipe the building—you might scratch off the paint as well, not just the Moltofill.

Depending on what you want to achieve, this might already be enough. For my personal taste, however, I wanted to remove some more of the mixture. I did that by scratching off some it with a tooth pick or scalpel, use a rather hard brush to wipe off some more, and dry brush parts of the grey-ish mixture with Cavalry Brown.

The final result and quite happy with it. If you add the windows, roof, and more building parts, it will also make it look better. Your eye will not focus on the bricks and mortar as much anymore.