Painting Sidewalk Terrain Casts
By Kreighton Long
In my previous article, I described my first foray into mold making. In this article, I’ll share how I took the cured casts and painted them to look like generic cobblestone sidewalks. I spent some time looking at different cobblestone sidewalks on Google Images to try to find out how to paint mine. In the end, I decided to go with a basic grey color as a safe neutral to fit most settings.
After cleaning off the excess resin and mold lines and giving it a quick scrub I ended up with this ghostly piece of sidewalk. From here I primed it with flat black spray paint and base-coated it black.
The main paint I used on these sidewalks are Apple Barrel Black and Pewter Grey. I used a chunk of sponge to sponge on the paint to help give the stones a textured and more worn appearance.
After priming and base coating the piece I sponged on the Apple Barrel Pewter Grey. Of the three rounds of sponging this first one was the most thorough so I will call this the “heavy” sponge round.
Next, I applied a wash with some watered-down Apple Barrel Black. After the initial wash dried I dabbed some patches of watered-down black to the center of the stones with my brush. If you’re in a hurry you can skip that last bit but I found that I liked the added texture those marks left by the end of this.
To add some flavor to my sidewalk sections I added some patches of algae and moss from where water pooled between the stones. I mixed Vallejo’s Golden Olive and USA Uniform at a 1:1 ratio, watered it down, and applied it in the cracks between stones.
My aim was to give the impression of water running down from the building adjacent to the sidewalk or from a downspout so I stretched the green from the inside of the sidewalk down to the curb. Then I sponged on some Apple Barrel Pewter Grey paint. In order to preserve some of the blacks from the previous step I sponged a tad lighter than before making this the “medium” sponge round
Finally, I mixed in some white to the Apple Barrel Pewter Grey (roughly a 1:1 ratio) and sponged that onto the piece. As this is the highlight coat I was the most gentle with the sponging making this the “light” sponge round.
Through The course of making molds, I ended up with four different types of molds for four different types of sidewalk pieces. The bottom piece has curbs on three edges, the middle two pieces have curbs on the long side and opposing short edges, and the top piece has curbs only along the long edge. By strategically placing them around buildings I should be able to mix and match to fit most situations.
Two pieces of sidewalk come together to form a corner.
Happy painting!