I find myself constantly struggling with a good concrete color for painting styrene. I started out with Polly Scale’s concrete color but it just doesn’t look right - too much of a dark, grayish green for what I’m looking for. So I start adding this and that to it, trying to get it to look right and I just get nowhere.
I would prefer to stay with acrylics if possible. What are some your favorite mixes? What am I missing (besides an artist’s touch)???
What I’ve been using for concrete is Floquil White Grime, it’s not really white, it’s more of an aged concrete color. Not sure what the equivalent of the Polyscale would be though.
I use acrylic craft paints from walmart. I use country tan and country gray in a mix, basically a drop of each on a scrap of card stock and using the same brush paint what ever needs the color. Just using the tan looks like old concrete, the gray looks newer. Brand new concrete looks almost white. After the first coat dries, I may give it an acrylic wash of black, or dust with chalk for a dirtier look. mh.
I find that the light or dark gray auto primer works well for the color of concrete. Once the primer dries, I use pastel chalks and lightly brush in more color using the umbers, siennas, tans, and black chalk colors. I take a hobby knife with a #11 blade and shave the chalk sticks into a pile of chalk dust then apply it to the painted primer surface with a stiff artist brush…chuck.
I have found Delta Creamcoat Acrylic paint the best for concrete. For old concrete I use Sanstone, which has brown in it, and Mudstone, which is more on the gray side for new concrete. Mix it with white to get the color tone you want. I use Mudstone on station platforms and wash it with India ink to show dirt and age. You can buy it in Michael’s Craft store for about 75 cents per 2 ounces. It sure beats the RR paints by color and price.
Doc
Wow. Thanks for the quick replies.
I’m glad to hear that some of your suggestions are leaning toward the tans. As I drive around looking at various concrete pours, I’m noticing more of those tones. It’s just hard to break away from the idea in my head that concrete is supposed to be gray. And then throw into the mix that Polly Scale’s color leans heavily in that direction.
I also think that I’m going to have to break into using more washes and chalks to achieve what I’m really looking for. I’ll get there. Baby steps…baby steps…
Still pretty new to this whole thing actually. I was really into it as a kid, and am rediscovering my love of it as I introduce my 7 yr. old train-fannatic son to the hobby. My attention to detail and desire for realism is much higher now than it was some 35 years ago. I can see already that the members of this forum are going to be a great help. Hopefully I’ll be able to constructively contribute some ideas of my own someday. Thanks again guys!
I don’t know. I use polly scale “aged concrete” I think it looks just like my {aged} concrete porch slab.
Now weathered concrete may be a very different color. My father had a new garage apron poured about 35 years ago that under the cover of the porch roof still looks like a gray-ish tint to it that it had when new compared to the rest of the porch which looks like creamy “aged concrete”.
Concrete in various areas can have different hues and in certain weather conditions has different hues. And each eye percieves the “color” differently.
I use primer. Gray colour changes with the light it’s exposed to. I’ve added different washes to change its appearance after it was put on the layout because of lighting differences around the room. I think it’s one of those colours people try and be too fussy about. Kind of like “what colour is the sky?”
That beautiful red sunset you’ve painted isn’t the right colour of blue.[:O]
Brent
For new concrete you might like Jo Sonja’s Linen, one of their Background Colours range. Artists acrylics. Linen is a dirtyish off-white. I use it a lot.
Mike
I just had the same dilemma and what I came up with is first I paint it a light grey, then after dry add a cream color and light grey kinda mixed together and dabbed on, when dry, I used AI and then touched up with a slash of the same mixed together mix. Can’t really mess up because it can be a layering process.
It’s funny how the mind can play tricks on you into thinking what color something is “supposed” to be.
When I was first doing some “concrete” work on the layout, it looked good, but there was just something that seem right. I then painted the same color on a piece of styrene, took it outside and sat it on the sidewalk … not even close ! But it DID open my eyes to how it needed to be adjusted.
Concrete is obviously not a solid color like paint. All the above methods to weather your concrete color are excellent options to get that right look. That’s the beauty of scenery - if it doesn’t look right, you can just keep adding to it until it does.
Mark.
Hi! Welcome to the Forum!
Your question is similar to others we have wrestled with a number of times (including the color of dirt, rock, asphalt, and so on). The fact is, there are many, many different shades of color to concrete structures - usually ranging from near white to near black.
I’ve had reasonable luck with some of the Testors/Model Master paints in the various military flat grey range. Of course these are oil based (not acrylics). I would pick a shade that looked reasonable, apply it, and typically add a light vertical wash of black or darker grey.
You could surely do the same with acrylics, and anywhere in the light grey area would work. I do believe that some weathering makes all the difference, but that is an individual preference.
Oh, one thing I learned the hard way… If you are going to custom mix a color, make certain you initially mix enough to do the entire structure (and then some). I’ve got a large grain silo with two shades of barn red on it, and it always reminds me I messed up.
For larger pours, I use Rustoleum’s textured beige, for smaller projects I use Apple Barrel acrylic sandstone (comes in a bottle like the Ceramcoat products, get at craft stores - inexpensive). After these have been applied and dry, I tint with either a wash of acrylic oxide red mixed with black and yellow (or even grey), or use grimy black colored Bragdon’s powders to get a specific desired look. Some concrete pours are and do remain grey, that’s because of the mineral make-up of the sand abd aggregate used when the concrete was mixed. For that I use a mix of black, white (or grey) and the Apple Barrel sandstone. The amount of grey desired can be adjusted to the desired effect.
What I found about aged concrete is that it is not one uniform color. I airbrush on about a 2 or 3 to 1 Polyscale concrete to Polyscale earth color. Then I do the India ink and alcohol weathering followed by a light overspray of thinned Polyscale dirt color. I try not to apply the dirt in a uniform manner. One time I put on the India ink too heavy so I did a thinned light overspray of the concrete color mix that allowed the ink to show through. Turned out really nice.
My $.02
Mark
This what I do also, but with some shade of gray paint, not auto primer.
The color of concrete will vary between localities, years, and suppliers. What I did is find a gray that will work even though it may not be an exact color, then use chalks to vary that color depending on how it is being used on the layout.
Hi All: I found out a few years ago that: there are many shades of the same color. I once had a WHITE Chevy car. I parked in a big parking lot next to another white car. When I got out of my car, the one next to me was not the same color of white. I started looking down the line if cars and there were four more White cars and none of them matched any of the others. One of them was really bright white, while the rest were slightly different. Any one of them by its self you would call white, but none of them were the same color.
I live in a small town/boro, and we just got new concrete sidewalks. You can tell where they stopped pouring the concrete on one day, and the next day the color was just a little different, all the concrete came from the same company, (not necessarly the same truck). The color is stll different if you look for it.
Sam
There is no rally orthodoxy in concrete coloring. As an architect myself I’ve seen many concrete colors and tones, from very dark grays to pristine whites. There are many variables, some of them may be: age, agregates, type, how it was casted, etc… all of those things may alter the concrete color. But the most important factor in concrete coloring is the agregate (sand, stones, etc…) . Agregates are usually local (except for special concrotes that require special agregates…). So concretes from one region may be different in color from another region. Dark grays concretes are from regions where sand is very dark. Yellow sands give a tan color to concretes. The darkes concrete I’ve ever seen was in San Jose, Costa Rica, where the sand and stone are almost black (volcanic origin), these gave the concrete a very deep and dark grey color. In La Guajira, Colombia concrete (using gray portland cement) is almost white, because sand and stone are very white. Concretes here don’t require white portland cement to be white. In North America concretes tend to be light grays and tan. Study the region you’re modeling and find out waht agregates would be used for concrete in that region and that should give you a clue of what color to use. Visit concrete structures and try to copy the color form pictures and so. As for bridges and special structures, special concretes are used where agregates are imported, generaly high resistance concretes are very light grey (anywhere).
The cement color can also vary considerably: white, grays, tans, etc.
Dante
So basically:
Pick a concrete color you like and stick with it.
If you mix it, make SURE to write down the formula so you can repeat as necessary.
Mix a batch large enough that will cover the entire project you are working on at one time.