Bought a few new Woodland Scenics rock molds and I was wondering, what is the best way to paint the plaster castings? I’m using plaster of paris on some, and hydrocal on others.
I use brown wood stain. It soaks in deep and each coat makes the rock a little darker. I also use a thinned black paint to darken the crevices. Top this off with a slight touch of white on the outcroppings and you have excellent rocks!
You can use other colors like gray or burnt sienna to color the rock differently. I’ll bet we’ll both hear and see some excellent suggestions in this topic! [^][yeah]
Rather than staining or dying the rocks, I spray painted them with tan, brown, black, gray, primer red, gray flecking, and tan flecking. It makes for a real solid rock wall look.
I use the WS rock colors. Use a very thin wash, about 30 parts water to one part color. I often do several coats to get the texture and look I want. You can vary the color by using a different color with some of the washes in places to get variations in the rock color.
A more recent photo:
You can vary the proportions of water and paint to get the drakness and depth of color you want on the rocks. I was looking for some very light colored rocks like are common in the Southern Tier of NY (Light Shale). Test the wash out on some scapes of the plaster first. Then have at it…
The WS stain is a good tip. If you can’t get or don’t want to pay for,I JUST started useing Wal-Mart craft paint for mine ($.45 a bottle) thinned about 30 to 1 and used as a wash and I’m getting GREAT results.They have a whole array of cheap colors.
I use regular old white interior latex house paint on sale at the local Home Depot or Loews, then tint small batches of it (magarine tubs) with craft colors from the local craft store (Apple Barrel or Folk Art). After the base coat dries, then I apply washes of the craft colors in water. A final dark wa***o emphasize the cracks and a dry brush of white to accent the high lights.
You can get gallons of flat white latex for under $10 and the craft paints are occaisionally on sale for 50 cents a tube. I also use mis matched return paint for the “dirt” color. You can easily get flat beiges and tans for $5 a gallon.
Or you can pay $20-50 a gallon for hobby paints.
Dave H.
I use very thinned artist acrylics–black and just a bit of raw sienna. Just get a large paint brush, saturate it, press it against the rock and let it kind of flow down. then dab in the crevices a bit. works for me. But remember, the colors you use will depend on the type of rock you’re modeling–most of the terrain I model is Sierra Nevada granite, which has a high basaltic content, and is relatively gray-ish. If you’re modeling sandstone or other sedimentary rocks, you’d want to use more earthen tones. I use a diluted wash on all of my scenery, no matter what the base color.
Tom
If cost is a concern, Wal-mart acrylic artist paints is the way to go. I used a mix of “Plaid”, “Slate Grey”, and “Burnt Umber”, sometimes with a touch of yellow for variety, but always full strength for an initial coat to seal the surface of the molds. Thereafter, I used washes of various types to experiment until I got the look I wanted…much like described above.
Honestly, you could do much worse than to use a mix of white and grey to get a limestone look, and then use India Ink washes until it looks well weathered. Simple, and looks great.
One thing I’ve noticed with this method is the rock usually looks best after just 1 or 2 color coats.It seems the more I mess with it, the worse it looks.