staining plaster scenery

[Yoav Elan]

I've been trying to convert my plaster-white scenery into some nice desert
yellow and brown. Using Woodland Scenic's set of dyes, I've prepared some
spray bottles of different colors and have been blasting away at a
particular mountain. When I returned the next day I found that the bold
colors had faded into almost nothing.

Also, in making the mountain I had patched up my rock molds with plaster
and found that when I sprayed with the colored water the color stuck well
to the plaster of the rock molds but didn't stick to the areas where I
filled in with plaster later, and the whole thing came out looking like a
mess.

Would increasing the dye concentration help?

Yoav Elan

[Fritz Milhaupt]

I rather doubt it-- it appears to be more a matter of how permeable the
different plaster is.

I'd think that applying a thin layer of latex paint over the whole
shooting match might be the best approach- choose a color that
approximates the lightest color you want on the rock face (maybe some
sort of sand color). Once that's dried, paint over with darker shades.
This is where an airbrush would be very useful, though you could
probably get some decent basic variation using spray cans (camouflage
colors, especially). No scenery in the real world is uniformly one
color, you see.

If you want some surfaces to have a sandy or coarse texture, you can
sprinkle in some fine sand or ballast while the paint is still wet, both
in places where you want to keep the color of the sand, and in places
where you'll paint over it later.

-fm
Webmaster of the Pere Marquette Historical Society Web site at:
http://www.rust.net/~milhaupt/pmhs/

To reply via e-mail, send the "llama." in the return address packing.

[Bruce H. Stull]

Hi, Yoav!

What do you mean "plaster"?

Do consider using "moulding plaster" - BIG difference!

Happy modeling!

Bruce

Yoav Elan wrote in message ...

>
>I've been trying to convert my plaster-white scenery into some
nice desert
>yellow and brown. Using Woodland Scenic's set of dyes, I've
prepared some
>spray bottles of different colors and have been blasting away at
a
>particular mountain. When I returned the next day I found that
the bold
>colors had faded into almost nothing.
>
>Also, in making the mountain I had patched up my rock molds with
plaster
>and found that when I sprayed with the colored water the color
stuck well
>to the plaster of the rock molds but didn't stick to the areas
where I
>filled in with plaster later, and the whole thing came out
looking like a
>mess.
>
>Would increasing the dye concentration help?
>

>Yoav Elan
>
>
>