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If you're using foamed PVC then you can do exactly the same thing as with the plasticard: just scrub it up with some heavy grain sandpaper to give it a rougher texture.
Awesome guys, thanks for the input. I'll give it all a try and see what turns out the best. Was planning on trying some spackle for filler anyway, and the sandpaper is a good idea as well.
Finished concrete is really very smooth, all this texturing seems like over kill.
All the texture you need can be added at the painting stage. Stippling, drybrushing, stamping with materials like gauze etc,
Well it really depends on the concrete and it's application. Some of it's smooth, almost glossy. But you wouldn't call a sidewalk smooth. I think roughing up plasticard with a bit of sandpaper is a good call.
I've actually used sandpaper as a road surface too. It works really well.
"-and all that time in Paris, when you were wallowing in debauchery with your doxies, tarts and pirates... you were trying to convince me you were a disgusting, swinish, lecherous, drunken sot... Well I want you to know it worked.
Chemical Cutthroat wrote: Well it really depends on the concrete and it's application. Some of it's smooth, almost glossy. But you wouldn't call a sidewalk smooth. I think roughing up plasticard with a bit of sandpaper is a good call.
I've actually used sandpaper as a road surface too. It works really well.
At the scale we're talking about a sidewalk is pretty smooth.
Interesting subject, those ideas for texture would be what i'd try out, let us know how it goes.
As for concrete being smooth at this scale, that's very true but you have to take into account how we perceive things. When scale modelling you have to go with what looks right rather than what's accurate.
If the bumps and cracks in a pavements are a maximum of 0.5cm for instance then that scales to less than a tenth of a millimeter. That is smaller than the diameter of a dust mite or about an eighth of the size of this full stop>.
You wouldn't be able to see that texture and probably wouldn't feel it to touch. However you probably wouldn't perceive that surface as concrete either. Because of this you may have to help, or trick, the eye a little to convince it your representing a concrete surface. The easiest way to do that would be to just rough the surface up a little until it 'feels' right. The other option i can think of, suggested by plastictrees, would be to paint your texture on. That will take a lot more skill and time but i couldn't tell you whether it'd be any more convincing. If that sample, above, is your handiwork however, well, i'm sold. It looks really convincing!
You might want to try and use both techniques for maximum effect? A little light sanding and a kick ass paint job like that might just create the perfect illusion.
I hope that helped. I'm told that i'm terminally boring though so maybe not. Also it's very late, those facts and figures could be all over the place, i'm sure someone will be kind enough to correct any mistakes i've made though.
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2012/10/27 02:05:16
@plastictrees - Casey's Law has the truth of it. You're dead right that good concrete - especially the sort illustrated above - shouldn't have any texture at 28mm, but sometimes you have to exaggerate to achieve a finish that conveys the look that you want. That's why I suggested sandpaper rather than spackle (Polyfilla), because the effect it conveys is more subtle. You could also use a Dremel with a sanding head, applied randomly and briefly across the surface for a less orderly finish.
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