GWR Brick Blue

I know you've mentioned Polly Scale, but have you considered using Phoenix paints? They do a ready mixed engineer's blue brick colour.

Go to Mainly Trains and type PHP954 into the MT Code search block.

I use my kids acrylics. Primary (sky) blue. Chuck in some black. This gives a very dirty blue (rather than just a darker blue) Once dry I render the cement in with a very thin wash of white. This also slightly lightens the blue again. To my eyes it's perfect :)

Tarmac is my bugbear. No matter what I try I can't get a colour that looks like tarmac to me.

Pete

mutley wrote: [...]

I'll risk telling you what you already know, but someone else may get some useful info, so here goes.

Start with a _light_ grey, much lighter than you think is right, and add a little ochre or other earth colour to warm it up. Or even blue - the actual colour of the tarmac is strongly influenced by the colour of the aggregate. There's a stretch of road near Thunder Bay (Ontario) that was a definite pink because of the red rock in it. Most tarmac is surprisingly pale - go take a look. :-) Add washes of darker grey to create the subtle variations in tone of a real road surface.

If you want the effect of newer tarmac, add black or dark grey washes over the light base coat until you get the shade you want. Even freshly laid tarmac isn't dead black. And it doesn't stay black for very long - you can tell the difference between tarmac being laid as you drive by in the other lane and tarmac laid yesterday.

Other factors: patches of colour, eg. oil drip patches next to bumps in the road (oil is shaken loose every time a car or truck hits the bump), tire skid marks, cracks, pothole patches, and so on. If you are modelling a street, don't forget the manhole covers and the gratings next to the sidewalk, oops, pavement. The texture is also important - use dead flat (matte) paints. I've used textured acrylic craft paint as a base coat, it looks a little better than untextured styrene of cardboard (but cardboard warps with water-based paint, so seal it first, or make sure it's completely glued down.) Don't oiverdo the texturing - Most attempts at adding texture that I've seen fail because the texture is too coarse.

And don't forget the markings, which should also show the effects of wear and weather. Roadmarkings will fool they viewer into seeing realistic roadway even if the colour isn't dead right.

IOW, it's the combination of tarmac colour and texture, and roadway and roadside details that create the effect you want.

HTH

Thanks for the tips on the blue brick. I'm not the vicinity of Mainly Trains and paints usually have to go surface over the sea- they are highly explosive dangerous cargo...

I was hoping to do my painting in weeks not months. :(

I'll give the color mixing another go...

Peter

This is getting away from the original blue brick question and onto the road comments. My question, from Australia, is, are British suburban and city roads cambered? Looking at photos of many British layouts, the roads thereon appear to be quite flat, just a length of Masonite or such, painted grey. Our roads all have a camber, which makes them a bit harder to reproduce in model form. If any of your British layouts have cambered roads, how are these done? Regards, Bill.

Yes, except in Yorkshire where they still use bronze age pack horse trackways. :-)

Poor attention to detail. :-)

Easy :-)

Outline your road on the layout, put in the kerbs. Get a stiff piece of card/plastic-card the same width as the road (or just a lttle wider if you have the space). Cut the profile of the required camber along one edge making cut-outs for the kerb. Slap your favourite filler/plaster along the length of the road, make it proud of your desired finish then using your card scrape along the length of the road. Using the kerb as a guide you'll get a constant profile. If you've no kerb either use more judgement or scrape down to the board/base scenic layer.

HTH

But if you are modelling and older street that's seen many, uh, "repairs", all bets are off. :-)

Another factor is where the road is and what is services in addition to the era being depicted. Some very old city photos show flat roads where there is a natural run off due to hills and even slight rises. The road outside my office had a gutter-crown/crown-gutter height diff of over 15 inches!

Niel.

I've seen streets in Los Angeles with a concave profile! Their purpose is for draining flood water downhill. A warning sign on the cross street reads "DIP".

Well, it's LA, waddya expect? LA is full of dips.

-- Cheers Roger T.

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