OK, Just what color is any “earth tone color” for scenery? I just don’t envision folks walking into their local Walmart, Home Depot, Lowe’s, etc and staring at color charts to try and find the right earth tone mix.
Are there off-the-shelf colors that you folks have found to be succesful?
Chris
Earth tone is a broad range of colors from light tans to dark browns as you’re well aware.
The base color of your scenery should be somewhat close to the “real” dirt, earth of the local that you are modeling. The exact color isn’t that critical as you will be covering this with scenicing materials such as ground foams, earth and/ or sand or gravels.
You may find that even for your use that you will need to alter the shades for various areas that you scenic. You could start with a color that is the darkest shade and add white paint as needed to lighten. For gravel roads, lots and yards the base would be a shade of gray…
As Robert notes, you’ll want a colour that’s somewhat close to that of the dirt in the locale which you’re modelling. I went to Walmart, found out which was their cheapest brand of flat interior latex, then grabbed several applicable paint chip cards that looked as if they might be suitable. I took them home and viewed them under my layout room lighting, opting eventually for something called “Thatched Cottage” - it sounds kinda cutesy, but to me it looks like dirt. [swg] This was quite a few years ago, so the name has probably changed - pick what looks right to your eye.
For tinting the bare plaster landforms (blindingly white), I thinned it about 50% with water and used a cheap 3" brush to apply it as a wash. It soaked in somewhat, but I used much less paint and as a wash it was a lot easier to apply than if it had been un-thinned.
With ballast, ground cover and structures added, you don’t see too much of it, but any that is visible is a lot less offensive than white plaster or pink or blue foam:
For my water scenes, where I wanted to represent a muddy river, I painted it onto the plaster riverbed undiluted (along with a dark grey/green for the deeper areas) and coated it with high gloss clear urethane:
Nowadays, you can take in a sample “bucket of dirt” and have it colour matched, but remember to first view it under layout lighting conditions.
Wayne
Thanks guys! I’ve been around the hobby awhile and it always seemed like my parents had extra paint that I’ve ended up using. It was just one of those things that I never really thought of and I just really couldn’t visualize us with paint chips trying to match up that perfect color of dirt[(-D] Guess I’m off to Walmart for color chips!
Hi Chris,
This is exactly what I did. My basic earth tone looks a lot like Wayne’s above. I mix my basic earth tone in glass jars with 50% wet water. I have a jar of dark basic, with a little black paint mixed in, and I have a jar of light basic, with some white paint mixed in. I have also fiddled around with a little siena into a jar of basic earth to give it a reddish tint.
Like the other guys said, by the time you add ground foam, bushes, trees, rocks, gravel, etc, you will not have a basic earth monotone over your layout.
Our Model railroad club uses “Quaker Brown” purchased from any True Value Hardware store. And so do I.