There is no one shade that is right for aged concrete. Concrete yellows over time so you can age it as much or as little as you like. It isn’t necessary to match Polly Scale aged concrete or any other shade. I like to use cheap craft paints to get a shade that looks right for to me.
Your statement is entirely correct…except for the fact that the thread was started in 2014 by a guy looking for an exact replacement for the discontinued Polly Scale Aged Concrete. Why this thread was revived now, who is to say.
When Testors dropped the Polly Scale line of acrylic paints, an exact replacement for Polly Scale Aged Concrete was one of the most sought after replacements. Several threads have been started on this forum over the past 8 to 10 years or so. Personally, Polly Scale Aged Concrete was one of my most prized paint colors.
When Testors first produced Polly Scale Aged Concrete, the formula was dead on as to color - - gray with a hint of green. Sure, concrete actually appears to be many different colors or shades of colors, depending upon a lot of factors including when it was poured, where it was poured, and the components used to produce the concrete. But there is only one shade of one color that can match Polly Scale Aged Concrete.
Rich
I still don’t understand the need to match to Polly Scale Aged Concrete. It is just one shade that some think looks like aged concrete. I see nothing exceptional about it. I think I still have a half bottle of it although I bet it has dried out. I’d have to add water back to it but I’ve found many different shades over the years that look better to me than that.
John, have you ever been in love only to have your girlfriend break up with you? [U]
Rich
Hopefully this will help some:
I did a test paint this morning comparing the different paints. I gave each about 45 minutes to dry before taking photos under a cool blue white (6500K) led hobby light. I recolor balanced. Notes are below photos.
From left to right:
Vallegjo Stone Grey 70.884
PollyScale Aged Concrete
Testors Model Master Aged Concrete Flat
Generic Craft Store Paint (My Studio-72764 Grey)
Coverage: Notes how easy it goes on to the plastic
Consistency: How evenly it goes on. No color variations
Thickness: Thickness is how thick it feels (how hard to push) Thicker paints tend to build up thicker layers and are harder to lay flat. However thickness can be counter acted with a drop or two or water at the expense of Coverage/consistency. Thick paints are harder to paint details onto depressed areas or corners.
Flatness: Flatness relates to thickness. If a paint is too thick, it will create uneven surfaces. You will lose detail.
Notes on Vallejo:
Coverage: Good.
Consistency: Acceptable. Way above craft store, but below PollyScale. Minor banding effects.
Thickness: Easy to push. I would say it was the 2nd thinnest in
Very nice piece of work, Don.
Thanks for posting.
Rich
I’ve never tried to apply craft paint directly to plastic. I always spray it with a primer first. Craft paint is so cheap, you can mix several colors to get the shade you want. For aged concrete, I wouldn’t use gray as my base coat. I’d use a light beige and then add a few drops of gray until I got the shade I wanted. I could get something very close to any of those other three colors. It just takes a little trial and error. You can also thin it with a few drops of water.
I agree with you, John, on the use of gray as the base coat. As I mentioned in that other thread that I provided a link to, I used White as the base in trying to match Polly Scale Aged Concrete, and the results were remarkable. To the White Base, I added much smaller proportions of green, gray, cream, red and brown.
Rich
I think it’s a lot of fun to try to create custom colors with cheap craft paints. For starters, they come in so many shades that you can usually find one that’s very close to what you are trying to achieve. The other thing is with something like aged concrete, there is no one right shade. I am far more interested in achieving something that looks right to my eye under my basement light than I am in matching what somebody else’s idea of what aged concrete should look like. That’s why I don’t look upon Polly Scale Aged Concrete as if it is some sort of standard to strive for. At best it is a shade of concrete at some point during the aging process. I used it a few times but it didn’t appear aged enough for what I was trying to achieve.
Take a look at these images. Not all are concrete but you still see a wide variety of colors and shades, not to mention weathering. Anyone would be a correct color of aged concrete:
images old concrete walls - Yahoo Image Search Results
When I’m trying to achieve the look of aged concrete, it’s something similar to this:
an-old-concrete-wall-with-cracks-1639278.jpg (1600×1071) (freeimages.com)
I’ll try your technique later today with a base primer layer for craft store paints with mixing.
I would give this advice. Use the lighter color as the base and just add a drop or two of the darker color at a time until you get the result you are looking for. It’s easy to have the darker shade overwhelm the lighter one.
For weathering, I would use a thin wash of the darker shade.
Thanks for the tip. Will do
Here is the new custom mix of craft paint on the right.
It’s
20 drops cream.
1 drop gray.
1 drop khaki tan.
1 drop earth brown.
1 drop hunter green.
It was applied over zinc oxide primer.
Consistency is still an issue and coverage for mortar lines was not good.
I’m going to post those results tomorrow
If you are striving for and aged concrete look, inconsistency can be a positive. Surfaces general don’t age and weather consistently. Minor variations are to be expected.
As for mortar lines, it’s been quite a while since I’ve tried to apply those. As I recall, it was a trial and error process to try to get the right consistency. Too thin and the mortar runs off. Too thick and it adheres to the brick surface. I do remember having to apply to the wall laying flat. Otherwise, the mortar runs off.
Below is a link that not only shows the names of the colors, but includes a color chart.
That’s closer to what I strive for for aged concrete although I would lighten it up a bit and apply some weathering. Seems kind of pricy. I’ve never paid more the $1 for craft acrylics. I’ll bet I could find a similar shade at Hobby Lobby. I continue to say just because somebody calls a paint Aged Concrete doesn’t make it a standard we need to strive for. I make my own aged concrete and it’s just as valid as those made commercially. There is no one right color or shade for aged concrete. It’s whatever looks right for your situation.
FWIW, if memory serves as it’s been awhile since I did it, but I used straight aged white and did a reverse dry brush technique where I applied it to a small section of brick, let it dry slightly and used a paper towel to wipe the excess off the surface while leaving the paint in the grooves. Hard work but the results are very impressive at least to me.
I remember when I first needed to paint something a concrete color … whatever I mixed, it just didn’t look right. I then took what I thought was close and laid it on a few different various concrete surfaces … I wasn’t even close ! Once I made some adjustments to my color to more closely match what I saw outside, things started to look much better on the models.
I’ve started doing this with a lot of colors. Telephone poles for example, while vary greatly in color, are no where even in the true brown scale.
Take a good hard look at the real word. What you think is correct at the bench, turns out to be entirely different from what you thought.
Mark.
That’s good advice but things don’t look the same in sunlight that they do under the artificial light of a train room. I go by the rule “if it looks right to my eye, it’s right.”.
Years ago I asked about the colors of concrete and the result was that there just isn’t a definitive answer. Concrete is just not one color, and what looks right to me may well look wrong to you.
So I bought all the possible concrete colors out there - including the Polly S. None of them satisfied MY perception of aged concrete. So I decided to “make my own” and did some sample mixes.
To the best of my recall, I ended up with a mix of mostly medium grey, with a touch of black, brown, and a tinge of green. I painted the grain silos and foundations with that mix, and then applied a very thin black/brown wash. The end result was just what I wanted.
OK, my point is three fold… play with various combinations and mix your own, and, don’t paint anything until you find the mix that satisfies you, and a dirty wash makes all the difference to bring it to the real world image.