Just a quick question - wasn’t zip texturing the idea of sifting paint pigment onto wet plaster? I have read other threads where the pigment was used to color the plaster but I vaguely recall it being sifted and at one time I had Linn Wescott’s book but it’s long gone by now. I have found a few bags of the pigment - it’s probably 15 years old - and wonder about its use. I tried to dissolve some in water and it just separated out and settled to the bottom of the cup. May try to dissolve it something else but I know there are other better alternatives out there.
You basically sum up the method. Some people opined that Linn Westcott’s favorite hydrocal plaster was in some ways less suited to zip texturing than say molding plaster but hydrocal has its own virtues and attributes. I am not sure it fair to say that zip texturing should be spoken of in the past tense. Although ground foams and Scenic Cement and certainly static grass applicators are all developments since the Westcott articles of the 1960s, there is still a role for what zip texturing can do, and there are still adherents to zip texturing as can be seen in this brief video
http://www.mefeedia.com/watch/32704432
I would say as a general rule that if something is good enough for Joe Fugate it should be good enough for any of us.
I recall that the portion of his layout that Westcott used to demonstrate zip texturing was a large and very craggy mountain range. It certainly worked well to very quickly give the plaster rock a more realistic and varied appearance and it was the sheer quickness of results that gave zip texturing its name (about that time the post office was introducing the zip code to move mail (in theory) faster).
Dave Nelson
I use zip texturing all the time. Try mixing in dry tempra paints into the plaster before getting it wet. Experiment with the dry paint powder using different amounts of brown, yellow, , black and even blue dry tempra paint colors. Try to remember the formula’s and write them down such as; 2 parts brown, 1 part yellow and 10 parts plaster or one part black, 5 parts plaster, ect… Dry tempra paints can be purchased at Hobby Lobby or Michael’s. You will be able to come up with some really convencing earth tones using the dry tempra paints in the plaster.
I use 2 techniques when applying the plaster / paint mixture I’ll either sprinkle the plaster over the area to zip texture than lightly mist it with a water bottle or wet the area down first and then add the tempra paint / plaster mixture to the wetted area…chuck
Thanks. The other question was what liquid could be used to dissolve the paint pigment? I tried water and later today I will give alcohol a shot. Maybe it isn’t readily soluble and needs the plaster component.
Good information in the video as well.
Harold
The way we did Zip texturing 40 years ago was to mix DRY pigment with DRY plaster and then sift the DRY mix over damp plaster or spray it with water. So there was no need to dissolve the pigment at all.
Zip texturing is, in essence, the superdetailing of scenery; I don’t usually include foilage in that definition but some people do. I had not been involved in the hobby for very long when Linn Westcott introduced zip-texturing in the pages of Model Railroader magazine sometime around 1963 or '64 if I remember correctly.
The sprinkling of dry pigments as you describe in your posting is only part of zip texturing–I myself have had better luck with wet spray but I have an acquaintance who does most of his tinting and toning using dry pigments; at its heart zip texturing was the art of taking the generally featureless Hydrocal® hardshell and giving it coloring and topographic detail, primarily rocks, whether individual rocks or rock fracings such as found on cliff faces. Often this involves casting rocks in molds and then giving that rock additional detail through carving. A harder plaster then Hydrocal® is generally used for this purpose.
The Model Railroad Hobbyist online magazine just had an article about reviving this technique recently.
In many cases, I consider Zip textured ground cover, green, brown, etc, to be much more relistic in smalller scales like HO or N than the current “ground foam” trend.
It seems many of us forget what scale we a working in or loose track of the “size” of things scaled down.
Only the tallest feilds of hay or straw, or really heavy brush have any measuralbe height in HO or N scale. Grass, especially grass in man maintained areas, lawns, parks etc, is not tall enough to need all this “texture” offered by the gorund foan sold by the “scenery company”.
And, as we get farth from the scene, that is things in the background, such textures are also not readily apparent in real life.
Zip texturing is fast, easy to learn, easy to replace/redo if needed, inexpensive and by far more effective in many cases than expensive ground foam.
Sheldon
Chuck, do you have any photos of zip textured scenery you could share? [*]
I feel like such a piker. I’d been sifting plaster on wet scenery for years. I didn’t know it had been developed by Linn Westcott 40 something years ago.
The gravel road is a mixture of ballast and zip texturing
zip texturing with scenery added
zip texturing before ballast and scenery grass, bushes, shrubs, ect went in
The road at the loading dock is zip textured
