 Re: natural materials
In my personal experience you must re-paint "real life" items when you put them on your base. Bassically my friends and I think of it like a scale. On one extreme you have real life looks, on the other side you have the effect of painting things to look like real life. Technically speaking you shouldn't have to highlight things because the light in a room creates shadows on its own, but because of the scale that we are painting on in order to get a more "realistic" look we have to highlight in order to create the illusion of shadow.
So when you introduce a real item into something that you have painted to look real it ruins the illusion and looks shody. However if you aplly the appropriate ammount of highlighting and inking it will help blend the looks together and give you a great looking base.
I will see about getting a Tut of that up in a few days and see what you all think.
That is my two cents,
Servo |