This is part 3 of the tutorial on how to make the roofs of the medieval buildings. (part 1 is here)

In this part of the tutorial we make some great looking clay shingles for the roof. This is the red clay kind of shingles. They look fantastic.

Once the Plaster of Paris has dried carefully and slowly remove it from the mold. Depending on how thick your casting is you can easily crack or split the piece. That is ok. YOu can glue it back together very easily and the crack will not show. One way to minimize this is to give it plenty of extra time to dry before you remove it from the mold.

This is the clay shingle roof. I am in the process of painting it. It looks terrific. This is going to look real good on the buildings.

Here is the mold I made out of clay to make this shingled roof. I simply pressed in all those shapes with ar round dowel a little thinner than a regular pencil. Its about 1/4 inch.

Now this mold is a little bit tricky becuase of the way the shapes are.

If you cast a rubber mold of this it would be backwards. Kind of difficult to explain but what I did was coat the clay with a sealant and then cast the plaster right into it. This way it comes out correct. You will see this better in the next picture.

You can see in this picture what I mean about how the casting is. The plaster for this mold was cast right into that clay mold above. Now the shingles are curved the right way.

Ok, the paint I used is poppy orange. It is just about the right shade for this kind of shingle.

Adding a little red or brown could be ok too. You could go with a plain orange if that's all you have.

Now we finish off the shingles with a technique called washing. Wet your brush with a lot of water. Really soak it so it is dripping. Then dip it in a little black and wash it right over the shingles. The black will settle into the cracks nicely. You can really brush it around. Don't be bashful with it!

This will give you some wonderful definition between all the various shingles.

And there you go. The clay shingles are painted and look fantastic.

Okay, Let's continue with the medieval village and do more buildings!

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