Sandy Shores - Quay Painting

Finally, the bare white DAS clay that is supposed to resemble a stone quay has slowly been morphing into a more suitable set of subtle stone-like colours! Well... mostly! Truth be told, I had a bit of a problem a couple days ago because the cheap water-based black and white acrylics I used resulted in a blue colour (rather than the grey you'd expect when you mix the two colours)...

...allow me to show:


Above: The natural white state of the DAS clay
Below: The first randomly selected stones were painted "grey".... except they look blue/green!



Above: The next randomly selected stones were painted a lighter colour still. Yep, definitely blue!
Below: And the remaining stones painted in two lighter variants of "grey"...



Above: An aerial view at this stages shows a distinct bluey appearance... not happy! I'd hoped that it was just the light I was working in, but that definitely wasn't the case.

So what next? Well, time to pay the lovely local model shop a visit and buy proper Vallejo water based paints! Armed with a selection of white, black, grey, and two yellows, I set about painting the rest of the quay. The results are a bit better.

First step was to give the whole lot a wash of Vallejo "Light Sand". This helps to colour all the mortar joints. The vertical walls of the quay were half painted when I decided to stop and go to the model shop, hence why it still looks a little blue in places in the photo below. Fear not, I will be revisiting some of the more blue stones and making them somewhat greyer.

The eagle eyed amongst you may have also noticed that I've given the road/concrete it's first wash (Light Sand again). I expect to experiment with more washes of colour as the week progresses. I also finally got around to painting the outlet pipe (by the steps) a suitable concrete colour.


Overall, it is still a little too blue in places, but it's starting to look a lot better. Hand painting every single stone takes flippin' hours, but it's time well spent in my opinion. With a little touch up and repainting in some places, I think it'll have the sand blasted appearance I'm after. For reference, here's the kind of look I'm trying to achieve (Calshot Castle, 2009. Photo is my own.). You'll note I really need to get a bit more grey and yellow into the mix! Oh, and I'll also need to make the lower stones a darker greenish colour.


Anyway, that's your lot for this update. I'm off to finish installing programs on my new PC, so I can get back to finishing this damn soundtrack!

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