I’ve read a couple of threads here about Polyscales ‘Aged Concrete’ water based paint coming out too green, and I agree for the most part. I’m working on a building now, using Walther’s modular parts, and I used this paint to do the foundations, and I noticed… when viewed under my trainroom’s florescent lights that it was decidedly on the green side. I decided to photograph it to see how it did in color corrected images using Photoshop.
The above image was made with a Nikon D90 using a Nikon bounced flash unit, raw file. The image was brought into Photoshop and color balanced with a neutral grey point (card), converted to an sRGB file for internet viewing.
It seems to photograph a bit better than it looks and that is probably due to the difference in the (mostly) color balanced flash unit and the rooms florescent lighting. On other buildings that I used the paint on, then weathered, it looks pretty good with the slight green toned down.
The mortar lines were done with Robert’s Brick Mortar formula.
I agree…it does have a definite green cast to my eye. If it is worse “in person” I would be repainting it. I generally use Concrete, then weather it with washes of India ink and thinned Mud.
When you say “Old Concrete”, do you mean “Aged Concrete”?
Pollyscale has two such colors: Aged Concrete and Concrete. I use both and the Concrete color has no appearance of green in it, but the Aged Concrete does have a somewhat green cast.
And to think of all the time I spent pondering how to add some moss-like character to some of my sidewalks…and the answer was in my paint drawer the whole time! Thanks for the tip! By the way, nice job of mortaring your bricks.
Lol… I dont think it’s quite THAT green! A little weathering and it’s not noticeable.
Ahhh… those little mortar lines I took a bit of extra time on them this time and it can be a bit time consuming. I have a structure on my layout that I got from the family of a deceased modeler, he liked to weather his stuff a little more than I generally do, and I was noticing that he didn’t bother with mortar lines at all and it looks very good.
It would be interesting to see side by side shots of the same structure and color, taken by the same camera and settings, indoor lighting then outdoor shade then outdoor sun. Indoor lighting does strange things to certain paints and shades and you sometimes see the “ingredient” colors become prominent in unexpected ways. Back in the days of film cameras special filters were often used to correct for the excessive green.
My front porch is poured concrete. Because it’s on the NE face of the house, it doesn’t get a lot of sun and gets a film of moss / algae on it if I don’t keep it scrubbed. A green cast is not unprototypical.
That said, I agree with Shayfan… the color has always looked pretty good to me (although I use the Polyscale acrylic version).
