Taken for Granite--spattering paint for rock effects.

[becdecorbin]

I'm pretty sure I used this effect for the CAVE kit, but it's in storage. Aurora's large scale WOLFMAN kit (or rather the base) will sub for the moment. I started with a middle gray base color. Once that was dried and even, I took a toothbrush, dipped it in acrylic paint (enamel is OK too) and held it a fair distance from the model surface and ran my thumb backward on the wet bristles, letting the return motion of the bristles spatter large, random drops on the uniform surface. I began with white, moved to black, did a little here and there with reddish brown and where the got too dense with one color, went back to the base gray and evened out the tones. Granite is excellent for the ice age kits. I think the Neanderthal's hand-held rocks were done with the spatter effect.

Certain airbrushes come with a splatter tip, but I don't have the budget for that. The toothbrush is a great "unplugged" technique and it's easy to overboard. Wear rubber gloves if you don't want a rock-colored thumb when you're through.

[becdecorbin]

Found it. I no longer have Aurora's (Polar Lights) Bride of Frankenstein kit, but I got a close up picture of the base of the kit with the same granite effect.

[becdecorbin]

completed this afternoon--the rocky roost of Revell's Endangered California Condor. I had doubts about changing my technique, but it worked. This time. Instead of a toothbrush, I used a single-action airbrush down in the garage and rounded up my stony colors to begin painting. I inadvertently used a gloss color for the base coat (Aircraft Gray). That shine was tough to work with, but I ended up using Aircraft Gray again, this time mixed with a lot of Flat White to kill the shine and lighten up the color. The first dark color I threw on in splatter mode was Gunship Gray. I was doubtful, but the effect worked.

The speckles that hit the surface were MUCH smaller than the toothbrush left. I had to loosen the airbrush nozzle to its utmost to get the paint to fly everywhere. Gunship Gray was used more extensively in the places needing shadow, especially in the cave mouth. Sand Beige, a flat, earthy brown came next followed by Flat Black, a little more of the basecoat on higher areas and finally Flat White conservatively applied. A lot of color changes, but the paint was thinned so it would splatter and getting the different paints muddled in the color cup was an advantage, not a drawback. All the coats went on quickly and flat lacquer went on to kill what little shine there was and to seal the layers.