Yes, I did a search and got "Sorry, we were unable to find any results using your search terms. Please change your search terms and try again."
I would like your opinions on a good base coat color (brand and color name/number would be ever so helpful) to slather on some plaster gauze scenery that will represent the WV hills. I used to live back that way, but it was a long time ago and memory fails. I found photos online that give me a general idea, but 1. I don't know what to look for, paint-wise and 2. I have learned the hard way not to trust "pixilated" colors on computer monitors.
It will be mostly covered by vegetation, of course, but I want to start with a good base, not blinding white.
Thanks!
Sean
HO Scale CSX Modeler
I suggest getting a bag of Woodland scenics earth blend mix, then taking that to home depot or lowes and having them mix you a paint to match it. I did the same, but with the green blend. For slightly more money, you get a quart of paint vs the 8 fl ounces Woodland scenics sells.
sfb
Just pick a decent "earth" tone medium/ light brown as your base. Plan for scenery contours, rock outcroppings and cuts of coarse. Much of your first application of scenery base (ground foam) can be applied directly to the wet paint. Lighter appliocations to show bare earth (paint). Continued scenery w/ weeds, bushes( clump foliage), plant/ place all background/ backdrop trees (puffball or your choice (Polyfiber stretched over armature) and work toward the forground trees. Placing underbrush and additional weeds and bushes as you like.
Modeling B&O- Chessie Bob K. www.ssmrc.org
Mac,
First get rid of the white plaster look. I paint all of my 'ground' cover areas with Dutch Boy 'Potting Soil' latex paint. It was on sale, and looked like good dark earth. You can then use W/S or Scenic Express ground foam 'blends' to do the actual vegetation.
Most of my 'ground foam' is home-made:
You can make lots of ground foam quite fast over a week-end. I can make 3-4 W/S 'shaker' bottles of the stuff in a couple of evening. And matching it to some of the W/S 'blends' is quite easy if you make up batches of 'green' and 'tan' materials.
Jim
Modeling BNSF and Milwaukee Road in SW Wisconsin
Much of what "soil" there is is rather clay-like, yet darker colors do occur on some of the rock outcroppings.
I use Liquitex Concentrated Acrylic Artist Colors. I use an old aluminum pie plate for my "palatte". I use Raw Siena (No. 2002-330) which is a tan similar to clay and then Burnt Umber (No. 2002-128) which is a darker brown. I mix these together with water on the pie plate, and a general proportion of 75% Raw Siena and 25% Burnt Umber yields a similar to the dark clay of Appalchia. Doing this mix does result in some varience in the tone, but that yields some depth as there is very little in nature that is monotone. On the hillsides, to simulate some of those low-grade coal seams that are visible in the cuts, I sometimes also have a dab of black on the plate to have some darker horizontal stratifications.
One caution - It can be difficult to match colors if one stops and then starts again after the acrylic has dried. It is best to do an entire "area" in one painting for things to look smooth. This would be especially true for something like painting a "gravel road". A streak of color that doesn't look right can be easily tended to while wet by mixing a slightly different blend of Siena and Umber, but once it dries and you go back to try to paint next to it, then an "edge" or "seam" will be visible between the two batches.
Bill
Regional soil color could be the next thing in realism. Where I am in Tennesse for example, the soil tends toward brown with ivory/tan overtones. Yet less than 50 miles away in Alabama, the soil becomes a deep oxide red similiar to what I grew up with in SC. In fact it can be so red in some places that it an exact match looks unrealistic on a model railroad -- no on can believe the ground is that red.
Colorado_Mac Yes, I did a search and got "Sorry, we were unable to find any results using your search terms. Please change your search terms and try again." I would like your opinions on a good base coat color (brand and color name/number would be ever so helpful) to slather on some plaster gauze scenery that will represent the WV hills. I used to live back that way, but it was a long time ago and memory fails. I found photos online that give me a general idea, but 1. I don't know what to look for, paint-wise and 2. I have learned the hard way not to trust "pixilated" colors on computer monitors. It will be mostly covered by vegetation, of course, but I want to start with a good base, not blinding white. Thanks!
Sounds like a lot of people are sensitive to the "did you search it" question. I admire your work ethic, but it's not the esoteric questions like this that get people fired up, it's the more common ones.
I think this is an area that can be easily over analyzed. I'm sure there are people who, like Sherlock Holmes, can recognize over 150 types of soil from a given area and tell you exactly what spot they came from. For most of us, though, it just has to pass the "close enough" test. The purpose of the undercoat is so that you're starting with some color other than pink or white, neither of which looks very natural.
If you have some pictures, then you're most of the way there. Look at the predominant color -- is it dark brown, light brown, tan, sandy, reddish? The soil around here is light brown with red overtones, generally. So, go to your local home improvement center or hardware store and get a quart of the cheapest paint you can and pick a color chip that's fairly close. I use Glidden's flat interior latex in Ground Nutmeg, which cost me about $8.00.
Paint your scenery with this paint, making sure you cover all the white or pink, but don't worry too much about lighter and darker patches. They won't be noticeable once the scenery goes on, and colors in nature are highly variable in any case.
Woodland Scenics makes a water color "Earth Undercoat" which is a pretty neutral brown color, but it doesn't cover foam very well, and it really sinks into plaster, so you'll use a lot of it, and it ain't cheap (a 6 oz bottle costs about the same as a quart of cheap interior latex).
Connecticut Valley Railroad A Branch of the New York, New Haven, and Hartford
"If you think you can do a thing or think you can't do a thing, you're right." -- Henry Ford
Thanks, guys (I think you're all guys). Great tips, and not just about the paint but delving even deeper. Love this forum.
My wife actually suggested that the color of our house would be close to what she remembers, and I still have a few gallons of that sitting around. I'm going to compare it to my sample pics and test it on a corner and see how it looks on plaster compared to wood siding.
I used a "Light Wheat" from Wal-mart ($9 / gallon) as a base and it only took about a quart.
Jim Murray The San Juan Southern RR
Western Pennsylvania is the northeastern tip of the Appalachians. The topsoil is usually on the darker side, while the clay is a beige, and a neighboring county has reddish topsoil. There can also be quite a bit of limestone. Highway hillside-cuts can reveal sedimentary rock/shale generally between the color of the area's clay & topsoil.
So, the geographic region of the Appalachians you are modeling could have a bearing if you are looking for what would be considered "prototypical." That being said, you've got some good direction in this thread.
Conemaugh Road & Traction circa 1956
Colorado_Mac Thanks, guys (I think you're all guys). Great tips, and not just about the paint but delving even deeper. Love this forum. My wife actually suggested that the color of our house would be close to what she remembers, and I still have a few gallons of that sitting around. I'm going to compare it to my sample pics and test it on a corner and see how it looks on plaster compared to wood siding.
I'd say give it a shot. So long as it looks like a natural color, it will probably do just fine.