Doing concrete

[deemery]

Here's a quick how-to on getting styrene to look like concrete.  In this case, it's a poured concrete loading dock. 
The first step is to sand the styrene, to remove any mold lines or joints, and to roughen up the surface:

The 'secret' is Liquitex "ceramic stucco," a good thing to look for when you have a 40% off craft store coupon (fine arts section)

You need to stipple this stuff on, you don't want brush strokes.  I use a thick bristle brush, but a cheap make-up brush would also work well.

On the top, I sanded this down after it dried, because the top surface would be smoother than the rough sides.  Then I painted with "Martha Stewart" color called "wet cement."

This color has a very slight green tinge which I think makes for great concrete.  (It's also quite close to the "holy driftwood" stain color.)

Then I applied dark pigment along the bottom to represent some mud splashing, and lighter pigments on the top, again to "polish" the concrete.  Then I added white to tone everything together.  Normally I won't use white or black, but in this case I wanted to lighten the color.  Finally, I added some extra weathering and streaking with pastel pencils, including some cracks with a dark grey pencil and some wear stains/wheel streaks with a light brown pencil.



And that's it.  This was a one evening project, including letting the stucco coat dry thoroughly before adding the craft paint.  I put the pigments on while the craft paint was still slightly damp, to get them to hold better.


dave

[rpdylan]

Looks great! I saw that stuff at Michaels a while back but didnt buy it.....thanks for the tutorial

Bob C.

[Zephyrus52246]

Very nice.  Thanks for the info.


Jeff

[ranny9]

I used it on my Bailey's build

[ollevon]

 Great tip on that Dave, that looks awesome.  I'll give it a try.
  Sam

[S&S RR]

Great tip on that Dave, that looks awesome.  I'll give it a try.
  Sam

Looks great Dave.  Thanks for sharing the tip - it's on the to-do list.