i am attempting my first winter diarama for the jenkins 'battle on snowshoes'. my base and hills are all done in styrafoam. whats the best paint, color, finish, to use as a base coloring for the styrafoam? any help will be greatly appreciated. thanks
winter diarama help needed (1 Viewer)
- Thread starter pugio
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fishead19690
Command Sergeant Major
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- Nov 3, 2005
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I would just buy some cheap acrilic paint from the craft store. Make sure you use acrlic or the foam will melt on you.
They also sell black guesso paint in most craft stores which is what they use to paint a canvis with for a base color before they start to paint and its a good cheap base primer for your foam.
I would just buy a large bottle of black and white paint and first paint your foam piece all black and then start mixing white into the black to get various shades of grey.
After the black has dried dry brush the piece with a dry grey color then let that dry and dry brush again with a lighter shade of grey. Just keep repeating this letting the darker shades stay in the cracks and the lighter shades stay on the higher parts and you,ll get a nice natural rock looking finnish with just the two colors(black and white). You may only need about 2 or 3 shades of grey to get a good look. I just get a piece of cardboard to mix the paint on and just keep adding more white to the black and more white to the grey to lighten it up and just use the same paint but just keep adding more white to lighten it further. This helps to keep me from wasting to much paint also.
They also sell black guesso paint in most craft stores which is what they use to paint a canvis with for a base color before they start to paint and its a good cheap base primer for your foam.
I would just buy a large bottle of black and white paint and first paint your foam piece all black and then start mixing white into the black to get various shades of grey.
After the black has dried dry brush the piece with a dry grey color then let that dry and dry brush again with a lighter shade of grey. Just keep repeating this letting the darker shades stay in the cracks and the lighter shades stay on the higher parts and you,ll get a nice natural rock looking finnish with just the two colors(black and white). You may only need about 2 or 3 shades of grey to get a good look. I just get a piece of cardboard to mix the paint on and just keep adding more white to the black and more white to the grey to lighten it up and just use the same paint but just keep adding more white to lighten it further. This helps to keep me from wasting to much paint also.
thanks so much for your help. will give it a go this week....
fishead19690
Command Sergeant Major
- Joined
- Nov 3, 2005
- Messages
- 2,555
I missed the winter part in your winter diorama help needed title some how!
You could also use some white glue and baking soda or woodland scenic snow and glue some snow to your work after the paint has dried.
You can also stick some small branches from trees right into the foam but before you do you could add a little glue to the branches and add a little baking soda and turn them upside down and give them a little shake so you don,t get to much snow on them. Don,t go to crazy with the glue if you try this or your trees will have to much snow and won,t look right.
With x-mas right around the corner you should be able to start to find small x-mas trees covered in snow in most department stores in the x-mas sections for the village stuff. Some of the other village stuff might work also so take a peak at that stuff when your in those kind of stores that sell that stuff.
You could also use some white glue and baking soda or woodland scenic snow and glue some snow to your work after the paint has dried.
You can also stick some small branches from trees right into the foam but before you do you could add a little glue to the branches and add a little baking soda and turn them upside down and give them a little shake so you don,t get to much snow on them. Don,t go to crazy with the glue if you try this or your trees will have to much snow and won,t look right.
With x-mas right around the corner you should be able to start to find small x-mas trees covered in snow in most department stores in the x-mas sections for the village stuff. Some of the other village stuff might work also so take a peak at that stuff when your in those kind of stores that sell that stuff.