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hello.
i built a day ago a nice looking cliff, made of Polystyrene (used a bit of dave's instructions about terrain) its all-right but now i want to paint it.
what kind of paints should i use for making it rocky green-brown with some grey heavy drybrush on the edges to make it look cliffy?
acrylic, Gouache, or something else? thanks!
also i would like to have some tips about how to paint it, what should i do... because thats my first time terrain painting (;
thats the terrain piece i want to paint:

I am going to point you to http://www.3t-studios.com/
These guys and gals! are fab !

Dakka posts can be found here as well -

http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/recentTopics/showTopicsByUser/23050.page

so what you want to do is paint it black as a base? well what you can do is take acrylic black paint and mix some sand into it or something to give it texture and brush it on first. let that layer dry. you cant spray it unless using an airbruh because the propellent in most spray cans will melt the foam.

Polystyrene is only the start!

1. Water down some ready mixed filler a tad and stipple it on... not too thick... to get even more of a rocky texture. While you're at it, mix up some sand, pva glue, rocks, pebbles, more filler, whatever, and go nuts at the base of the hills.

2. When dry, basecoat chosen colour

3.Drybrush on a few highlights!

I use bestial brown basecoat, heavy drybrush bubonic brown, lighter drybrush bleached bone on my rocky desert hills!

On big terrain projects it's a good idea to buy cheaper paints from a store than use gw paints... In the UK I got three big pots exactly matched to the aforementioned paints mixed up by Dulux for not too much at all!

i didnt understand what to do in 1 but thankss i'll use that!

I just use watered down PVA glue painted on with a cheap horse hair brush. Super cheap super easy. You can sparay paint your primer right over the dried glue.

Grab some latex based paints. Don't use spray paints, the aerosols will melt the Polystyrene if you choose the wrong can.

Thin it down some, and set to to work. Acrylics will go down overtop the latex just fine, for detail work of whatever theme you prefer.

I second the latex house paint and 99 cent brush. It's cheap, you can find it in any color you want, and it gets the job done. After that layer is down, you can spraypaint it, drybrush it, or whatever you want.

I've used diluted PVA before, but found that it beaded up on naked foam instead of covering evenly. Now, I just use cheap acrylic craft paint (I will mix in a bit of PVA, as well, if I'm trying to lock down basing grit, as well). Since I was given a bunch of obnoxious colors I'd never use, otherwise, I'll paint the foam a garish orange, pink, etc. by brush, to protect it from the propellant, then give it a spray with black to prep it for the visible paint work.

[edit:] Those of you who use latex house paint - have you found it to be particularly resilient? I've tried it with some leftovers before and it didn't seem any tougher than craft paint+PVA, just thicker. Wasn't sure if that was due to the age/quality of the paint or its general nature.

i think i'll use watered pva g;lue to cover and then spray black like icleadpeople recommanded. thatsa cause i just dont have latex and its the easiest! (:

If you have a hobby/ craft store near you, you can pick up bottles of water based paints that people use to paint those statues with. The Aisle has about a million different types, from flat to gloss, to glitter, to whatever color you want. Each one of the bottles costs about .99 cents for the small, or a 1.50 for the larger ones.

Easiest way to explain it is two ways.

First Way-

Paint the styro piece with watered down elmers glue, then shake some sand over the thing. Let it dry, paint over it with a base color- Flat Black, Brown, or White. Then Drybrush the detail color on it, and lightly drybrush on the other lighter shades of the colors you want.

After that, paint the bottom Flat Black.

Thats it.

Second Way-

Variation on a theme, You paint over the whole styro piece Flat Black, then Mix in the sand into the other colors of the paint you want, then dry brush the sandpaint over the piece. Then you build up the other colors from dark to light, over the sand paint.

Thats it.

Then after the fact, you can put a little elmers/ white PVA glue, then add in the gravel/ basalt. And the static grass, mulch, and lichen.

You really don't have to use coating on the piece after the fact.

I have a couple of pieces with wooden structures on them, as well. I just added the popsical stick fencing and painted it in the two shade styles. You can add in whatever, as long as your careful when playing with it. it isn't sturdy, and cqan break with rough treatment.

thank you so much. i think i'll use the first way