Painting concrete

[Guest]

That is, painting card to look like concrete, not applying paint to concrete...

I've got a nice-looking Hasegawa 1/72 postwar Schwalbe and I'd like to base it. I've got some offcuts of mounting card that I thought might make a nice concrete apron-style base. If I put two side-by-side I would get a "seam" in the concrete, and I can possibly dig a couple of potholes out with my x-acto knife, scatter a bit of flock along the seam and so on to give the impression of a slightly neglected concrete apron.

So, my main question is, what do I paint on cardboard to make it look like concrete? Any recommendations for colours or techniques?

Also, are there any relatively inexpensive bits of furniture or figures that you know of which might add a little interest to the scene, that would be appropriate for 1948 Czechoslovakia?

[yak face]

Hi matt, i reckon andrew (phalinmegob) would be a good person to talk to, his typhoon dio with concrete HAS (hardened aircraft shelter) looked superb,i dont know how he did it but the concrete was excellent. heres a link to the thread http://www.scale-models.co.uk/dioramas/12633-revell-eurofighter-diorama-kit-1-72-a.html hope this helps , cheers tony

[Guest]

Wow.

[Guest]

OK, new question. In between making models, we're also unpacking after moving house in the summer, and I've just come across a bag full of little pots, each containing a bunch of 1/72 figures - I've got 8th Army, Afrika Korps, US infantry, German Infantry, British Commandos, Soviet infantry, Japanese infantry, French infantry (1940) and of course the good old RAF Personnel set.

So I've picked a few models out of the RAF set, and cut a couple of holes in the "concrete" base to sink the bases into. I'll Milliput around the edges and hopefully it'll look fairly seamless.

The question is, what actually *is* that little cart thing that comes with the set?

[Gern]

Hi Matt,

Just a thought. Rather than use the bases to fix the figures down, have you thought of removing the bases and just drilling a small (say 0.5 mm) hole up into the leg of the figure and down into the base? You could then use a short section of a dressmaker's pin superglued at both ends to hold your figures down. It works with 1/48 figures and would save a lot of fiddling about cutting and filling recesses in your base.

You might need something thinner than 0.5 mm with 1/72 figs though; but it doesn't need to be overly strong, so even a piece of thin wire would probably do the job.

Gern

[Guest]

i would go with gern on that one, you are creating extra work for yourself that would not be that easy to hide. i just cut the bases of and then use a tiny drop of superglue, that way in the future you can get em off again and re use them on something else if you wish.