Beautiful model Mike! WOW!
I am actually staring over Russo's post again..and have started to do some work on the piles. I've done a few different things here.
I found some dyes at Jerry's Artorama here in FTC and use that for the first 'under layer' on the piles. I used about 3 different dyes in different combinations (more Brown, a little red, and a little black) and let the piles soak at different times to get different intensities.
THEN...I found some Minwax staining pens! These things are BEAUTIFUL to use. They have something like 6 colors, so I'm using a few combinations on the piles and also on the cap timbers.
Once I have the main structure pieces together I'm going to do a nice dark wash and light wash to pop some of the pieces. I've got to play around with a few black washes on the bents to get them like in Russo's post above.
I'll try to post up some pictures soon when I have something to look at.
Craig
Somewhere up in NoCo