Asphalt Parking Lot

[Gary S]

That one is my favorite. Together with the bridge and the abutement walls.... WOW!

let's see... power pole with xfmrs, chain link fence, ground cover, trees.... this is going to be fun!

[SP1]

That one is my favorite. Together with the bridge and the abutement walls.... WOW!

let's see... power pole with xfmrs, chain link fence, ground cover, trees.... this is going to be fun!

Can't await it

[Charlie B]

Another guy was right behind him hand-spreading a white shiny powder on the fresh paint. It looked like sparkly sand. ....

The Shiny stuff was more than likely glass beads for reflection after dark.
Charlie

[Herc Driver]

Great scene! The steel on that trestle looks terrific. That Chase Bank building looks really good sitting up there. My compliments!

[rrinker]

Wow! Fantasic! And other words with lots of exclamations.

And BiL - or the clowns who flunked first grade and put the stencils for STOP down wrong and you end up with the road painted to say SOTP. Yes this DOES happen, and more frequently then it should.

--Randy

[tetters]

Fantastic work Gary!

[Gary S]

Herc, Randy, Tetters, thanks for the compliments. I have been working on the parking lot of the Metro Bank too. I'll get some photos up tomorrow. I'm now convinced that using styrene for pavement is the cat's meow.

[Mileswestern]

Holy Smokes! Now THIS is prototype modeling! I'm truly and genuinely impressed.

I think part of the realism lies in the "breathing space" you have made with the width of the road, the size of the parking lot and all the typical detail it's truly an exceptional modeling job of the everyday.

[Gary S]

Thanks Miles. Now, with these big parking lots, I need more cars! I am finding that my era is changing - started out in the early seventies, then went to late seventies, then expanded up into the early 1980s, and now I even have some patched 50 footers that would really be 1990s. Anyway, cars from the 70s and 80s would fit the bill.

[Gary S]

Started working on the parking lot at the white bank. Figured I would post progress photos, hope someone can make use of the technique. I think it works well, and can be used for asphalt or concrete. In this case, asphalt.

First, cut a piece of .040 styrene to the parking lot dimensions. For big lots, it helps to have 4' x 8' sheets so you don't have to splice pieces together. Next comes sanding with 80 grit sandpaper, and a bit of wire brush activity. Don't want to gouge too deeply, but get some texture on the styrene. This makes the paint washes work. Use a hobby knife and bevel the edges, trying not to be uniform, also cut some places out of the edges to make them less than straight. Then use the knife to make various grooves and scratches representing cracks. Sand over the edges and the cracks, and then run the knife through them again so there are no raised edges from the displace plastic.

   

This lot had a couple places where it was patched, with the patches being slightly raised above the original surface. Used .015 sheet, beveled the edges, and sanded it, then glued it on:

   

For a cracked up, deteriorated area, used the knife to score and gouge the surface out. (I put a thin black wash on this for the photos)

   

Around the edges, used the hobby knife to put alot of cracks in, typical of the edges of asphalt paving.

   

[Gary S]

Had to start another post due to the erratic reply box...

Here's a photo of the overall plastic prep, black wash for the photo:

   

Then using thinned craft paints, put on some washes. Depending on the age of the asphalt, it could be quite black, or almost white-gray for very old lots:

   

Keep adding washes til you get the proper look. I use a hair dryer to speed the drying process. I probably did about 4 washes on this, but varied them for the different areas in the lot to match the prototype. Wash colors would be various grays, blacks, browns, off-whites. All this was done with washes - no need to apply any thick paint - the whitish plastic peeking through helps with the effect of older asphalt that is very light and bleached out. The sanded graininess of the surface really helps control the washes.

After three washes, I sprayed on a coat of Krylon matte finish just to set the initial washes, let that dry a bit, also used the hair dryer a bit to set it. Then did more washes, and a black wash specifically in the cracks.

   

Now, no photos of this, but I used colors of weathering powders to tie everything together, black, light brown, grays, even white to get where we want to be. Then another coat of Krylon matte spray. Hair dryer action to speed the drying process.

Then, lay out and mask the stripes and lines. On this one, I did change a bit from the real thing because of space constraints. Drybrush the stripe color on as per SP1's suggestion, may take a couple applications depending on what you want. With this lot being older, I wanted some of the lot showing through.

   

[Gary S]

And the finished product:

   

   

[Gary S]

and the real thing:

   

I'll see about glueing on some fine powder to mimic the dirt build-up in front of the dumpster.

[tetters]

Nice!

[SP1]

The last few posts would make a good tutorial for the Academy Section.

Well done, Gary