I'm trying to build my first road using styrene cut to size, and I was wondering what color would be the best to use. I have painted it Poly Scale concrete color, and will of course also use some grimy black and some weathering to make it look more real, but I'm afraid I won't end up with the color I'm looking for, so what colors does anybody else use? Jesper
I am hoping for some answers to this, as i am about to be doing some roads on my layout. I was wondering whether to do them as concrete roads or ashphalt. How to recreate either type would be helpful.
I will try and give it some black India ink wash and some grimy black with the airbrush this weekend, and hopefully I can post some pictures of the attempt Sunday. The color that I'm hoping to get is a light colored asphalt.... so lets see.
For concrete color on styrene, two coats of PolyScale Aged Concrete, followed by an overwash of india ink in alcohol, darker in the middle of the car lanes. Expansion joints added with fine point black marking pen. For asphalt, you might try PolyScale Tarnished Black which is quite grey.
I just finished one of several roads on my "N Scale". Would you believe I used cereal box cardboard? I painted it on the unfinished side with deluted black Acrylic paint. Of course it curled up but once glued down and with weights on it, the road looked pretty good. Oh, I also painted a white dotted line down the middle. I got the white pen at Staples. Couldn't find any yellow. So what!! It looks real good. I also took a regular black thin point pen and drew crooked lines on it to resemble cracks. It turned out that the deluted black paint on the cardboard had a slight grey cast to it so the black cracks turned out pretty good.
My preferred material is dense cardbard like that used for the backs of drawing tablets. You can also buy mattboard, it's basically the same thing. I color mine with -- egads -- cheapo watercolor paints. I use crayola pan types. Wet the black cake with a brush, and keep working it until the brush is sopped and the paint seems kind of creamy rather than watery. Glop it on the paperboard surface. Next, without cleaning the brush, work the white paint until it's wet and apply that right onto the wet surface. Just keep messing with it. For a lighter surface, use more white, (like I really needed to tell you that! ) Once it dries it looks real good. I usually go back and add a stripe of thinned black for where the tires run. Like telegrapher I use a white paint pen with a fine nib to stripe with. If you want yellow, put in white, let it dry for 24-48 hours, then go back with a thin wash of yellow watercolors. Lastly I make patches and cracks with a fine pointed drawing pen. Easy! The advantage of matboard? It's made in layers, so if you need it thinner to get it below the railhead height, just carefully peel a layer off.
Alan- Remember that a freshly paved road, whether concrete or asphalt, will almost always be much darker. Roads in use for a time show lighter color. Not only from weather or ultra-violet. But also from wear exposing the aggregates. Except for heavily rutted portions. Which can be darkened by tire deposits, etc. Boxcab E50
I also used corrugated cardboard and flattened out the edges to give curvature across the road as most roads are higher in the centre to allow for proper drainage. I then glu over the cardboard fine wet and dry (this is used for rubbing back cars) I then use white chalk to give the road texture and the look of ashphelt. Here are a couple of pics of my roadways
Some good methods there to try, thanks guys. Sounds like it is time to experiment I will take pictures when done, to see how they look.
For new or fairly new asphalt roads I like the Woodland Scenics Asphalt topcoat.(pt#ST1453) It gives an amazing representation of fresh asphalt. I don't care for thier Concrette as it is much too white.
Over the years I've always had trouble with getting a "concrete" color I was happy with. None of the available concrete colors look good to me. The problem is that concrete isn't "a" color, any of its "shades" from white to a rather dark yellowish/tan and everything between are actually a blend of many tones. The more shades you paint via drybrushing and finish off with rubs of chalk the closer you should be able to come to a realistic look. I primed styrene with Testors spray primer, then painted on the Poly concrete. It looked too, well, wrong. I lightly wiped some off, but the grey showed too much, so I brushed again, closer to a dry brushing this time, the "old" concrete color. I blended in to the best of my ability. Then went over it with several shades of chalk dust. I would rub it in with my fingers. Expansion joint was simulated by lightly sribing (before painting!) the styrene. After painting a thin black wash with some dish detergent in it was made and brushed on rather liberally (quite thin) Allowed to dry, it was wiped off the road well, but stayed in the scribed lines. Cracks can be added and filled with tar, tho I haven't done that. This photo shows the end of a section I had to build a year ago in because I wouldn't be able to reach it after the foreground was built. I will soon need to continue the road and detail it. You can see how I added a "crown" in this photo. I'm thinking the new section of road may be blacktop, it's simpler.
ok, here is what I tried today. first paint it poly scale concrete, then I brush painted a thin alcohol/India ink wash, didn't like it, then tried to wipe it off with a paper towel with some of the same alcohol/ink mix, really liked the effect so continued with the rest of the road. After that I went to Michaels and got some pastel chalk and tried to weather it a bit. I think the result is ok for a first try. I did add some cracks and some expansion lines, but unfortunately, the actually joint between the 2 pieces is way to visible, oh well, better luck next time. I have added a few new pictures of the painted track here http://community.webshots.com/album/68109417IfKYKK Jesper
well, after looking at the concrete road for some time, I decided that I don't like the look of it (no texture), so I will remove the styrene and try with a wallboard joint compound instead (read about this method in a book), also, I decided that I want asphalt instead of concrete, and the color that was used in the example in the book was "SP Letter Color", so tomorrow I will stop by the hobby store for the color, and hopefully I can post some pictures of a "nice looking asphalt" road sometime during the week. And Paul, today while at Home Depot I checked the wet sandpaper, and I like the texture of it, so if this compound method fails, then I will give the sandpaper a try. Thanks again for the pictures and suggestions. Jesper [ 12. May 2003, 00:37: Message edited by: jkristia ]
On my Spring River Sub I've used spackling compound, spread out & smoothed out, to get the road surface. Next I came back with gray chalk pigment, which I shaved off the chalk stick onto the road. I rubbed it liberally & thoroughly into the surface, getting it even- I'm going for aged asphalt as a surface here. On one road, I mixed in a little black pigment, rubbing it on. I'll either use cotton swabs or my fingers to rub the chalk pigment into the road surface. I've also used plaster of Paris and chalk pigments with some success. I have several different shades of gray, as well as black & white chalk sticks, so I can use just about any shade i want (i usually use the darker grays).
hey, whatever works! On my former layout (now dismantled ) I use a peice of cardboard from a cereal box, and painted with TESTORS flat black spray paint, (because I had some lying around from one of my plastic car models,) for a parking lot, and it looked really good, so I may do it again on my current layout. (which is still under construction). (I'm using AMI "Insta-bed" for the roads)
