is there anything else besides the expensive pigments W.S. sells that work as well on rocks that i made. i made my first rocks yesterday, they came out awesome. [8D][8D][8D][8D][8D][8D][8D]
Yeap, the cheap water color sets sold at places like walmart. Also might try craft shops or artisit supply shops in your area for larger quanities.
Tole paints (water based) are also a good choice as they come in a wide variety of colour, can be watered down and easily mixed.
Though I haven’t tried it yet some of the other MR’s on this forum suggest india ink to highlight cracks and crevices. Try putting in “india ink” in the “Search for Forums” at the top of this page.
I use artist’s acrylics in small squeeze bottles, dilluted with water. They are widely available in craft, hobby and five & dime (varity) stores. I use raw & burnt umber, raw and burnt sienna, grays, black, white, palomino, etc. earth colors. Each tube is a $2.50 in my area.
I color my rockwork with very simple, inexpensive “stains” made from water and acrylic paints. I use inexpensive artist’s tube colors such as Liquitex (available at Michaels and Hobby Lobby) and even more inexpensive “craft” acrylic paints such as Apple Barrel and Folk Art (available at Michaels, Hobby Lobby, and Walmart).
Just take a dollop of pigment about the size of your little fingernail and mix it with at least a couple ounces of water to make a stain. Be sure it’s thoroughly mixed before applying it to your rock castings.
Use natural earth colors such as raw umber, burnt umber, raw sienna, burnt sienna, yellow ochre, etc.
Here’s how some of my rocks turned out:
Mark
What is the advantage of acrylics over “tole paint”? I ask as I have never dabled with acrylics.
thanxs for all the ideas i see the trick is to stick to earth colors and you cant go wrong .
Fergmiester, I couldn’t tell you. I’ve never heard of, let alone used “Tole Paint”. Acrylics are pretty much the same material that Woodland Scenics uses. However, their paint is actually only the pigment without binders. Their paint will fade over time, which means if you got it to dark you can wait a few days and it will lighten. When it gets to the hue you want, then your to spray matte medium to bind the color. I use what I do, as there is two places to buy this stuff in my town of around 3,000 people, It is readily available.
Casey - superb work!
I used pretty much the same paints and methods. My picture is not as nice as Casey’s, but you can see what I’ve done with it in N-scale:
[:)]The cheapest thing I know of to stain plaster or Hydrocal rock-work is old strong coffee, or tea. The stuff really works! You can also use India ink mixed with rubbing alcohol, food colorings, etc… The others have also sugguested cheap watercolor paints , acrylics and such wich do work equally well.[^]
There was a nationally known modeler in the Kansas City area a number of years ago by the name of Bud McCrary. He used the same thing for all of his scenery. He swore by cold instant coffee for staining his plaster rocks. I saw his layout on a tour once, but I’ve never tried the coffe/tea scenery thing myself.
On my rock faces, I used some cheap acrylics paints from Walmart. Browns, yellows, blacks,and reds. I don’t remember what specific colors they were. They ran about 44 cents each. Sorry, I don’t have a digital cambra to post pictures.
Those are the Apple Barrel and Folk Art brands I mentioned earlier. They are great for making scenery stains as well as for painting detail parts.
Something else that might be of interest: many of the acrylic craft paints from Apple Barrel, Folk Art, Americana, and Ceramcoat are exact color matches for the Polly RR colors and a whole lot cheaper also. (An example is Ceramcoat’s “Mudstone.” It is an exact color match for Polly’s “Grime.”) They can be brush painted or thinned and air brushed just like Polly.