Painting Cobblestone

So, I'm going crazy trying to find a good way to paint our cobblestone on the foam we have. Here is the stamp and an attempt at painting that we've got:
http://www.tabletopgeeks.com/making-a-cobblestone-stamp-first-attempt/
http://www.tabletopgeeks.com/cobblestone-painting-take-one/

So, here's the problem that we seem to be running into... First of all, the texture on the stones is very flat after stamping. I made another post about that, and I'm going to try pressing a stone into it or something to see if that helps.

As far as the actual painting... we've been basing it very dark for dark grout, then dry brushing the stones over top. I find that a few things happen that we don't want:
a) It looks sort of "patterned" because of the brush strokes. There's a large section of one color here, and a section of another color there, etc
b) The grout always ends up not looking right because inevitably during drybrushing some lighter colors make their way onto it.

Here are some current ideas:
1) Randomly dab several bits of color around on the stones before and/or after drybrushing for a more varied look.
2) Do some inking to make the grout darker/stand out.
3) Use paint markers or a sharpie (in a dark grey) to go over the grout AFTER painting the stones, to give it a more distinct look.

Any suggestions on other techniques to use?

Ok this would probably be a pain but I'm think of how it would be if you brought in another color two the "in between" parts. I'd say, try out a little browner color. This would make the actual stones stand out slightly more.
- popmouth

Popmouth wrote:

Ok this would probably be a pain but I'm think of how it would be if you brought in another color two the "in between" parts. I'd say, try out a little browner color. This would make the actual stones stand out slightly more.
- popmouth

You mean paint the grout to be brown? That was actually our initial idea, but it looks kind of weird with the brown and grey. We could technically do it any color if we end up using the paint markers idea, as we'll be painting that in by hand after doing all the stones. Currently our thought is a dark grey grout with lighter grey stones.

I know gray and brown can look quite odd. Though if it was really dark brown, and quite light gray it might work.

I suggested this on the other thread because it was farther up and I didn't read down the list of threads...
I'd "ink" or wash it. Just paint a watered down version of the base color over the whole surface.
Hope that helps.
js

Photos of the VMC tables here--
https://boringmordheimforum.forumieren.com/battle-reports-and-fluff-f11/pirates-of-sartosa-the-venerable-mordheim-campaign-photos-t1577-75.htm#29432

So, I did some painting last night and we're getting closer... I noticed that if I used a sharpie or paint marker to trace the grout lines before doing any painting... then painted a medium gray and did all the drybrushing/dabbing then the grout just had a darker look. I think that might be exactly what we need. I didn't do a great job at the dabbing and drybrushing, so the stones didn't look so great. I also tried tracing over the grout after painting the stones with the sharpie/paint marker and it was too shiny/too dark. It didn't quite look right.

I did get a regular 70% grey marker and lightly trace over the grout though. That seemed to look pretty good.

I didn't really get a chance to try out inking or washing yet. That'll probably be the next step.

Okay, I tried out a TON of different stuff... Check it out and let me know if you have any more tips!

http://www.tabletopgeeks.com/more-cobblestone-painting/

Dude!

Last picture top right cobblestone attempt looks awesome to me!

and the 3rd picture from the bottom up, on the bottom right of the picture, that cobblestone looks very impressive too

really!!!

I'm very impressed!

Thanks I think that last drybrush went a little too heavy on white, but otherwise I think it looks great.

How do people feel about the marker stuff? I still have to test out a final wash to see if that works better, but I kind of like the way it looks.

the marker stuff, is perhaps a bit on the black side for my taste, maybe you could use a dark shade of brown marker?

Well, I don't have any pics right now, but I managed to make it look MUCH better, thanks to my girlfriend. She suggested mixing in a little blue for a blue-gray and now it looks MUCH better. I'm still trying to settle on the exact method (I'm testing out drybrushing/washing at different times/with different colors), so I'll put up some pics when I figure that out.

I love your dedication to cobblestone, perhaps the base of all our collective terrain building frustrations! Keep up the diligent work my friend!!

Okay, we messed with it a little last night and didn't make a whole lot of progress. I think tomorrow I might be able to put some time in and get a final painted version... I'm hoping.

How do people feel about these blue-gray schemes? (Just the color schemes, not the patterns)
http://www.hortservices.com/Cobblestone.jpg
http://www.salvoweb.com/images/userimgs/2/00844-A_40267_1.jpg

I think I want something kind of in between there. I like the sort of cool blue-gray look better than the simple grayscale that I was using, and I think when done right it can add more of an eerie feeling to the city. Thoughts?

Okay, I think I got it right where I want it. Check out the new pics: http://www.tabletopgeeks.com/final-cobblestone/

I have to say the "cobblestone saga" has been an interesting read, and watching it develop only makes me want to build my own table... slowly! Good news is i just ordered a new camera, no more blurry cellphone pics from me!

Pathfinder Dubstyles wrote:

I have to say the "cobblestone saga" has been an interesting read, and watching it develop only makes me want to build my own table... slowly! Good news is i just ordered a new camera, no more blurry cellphone pics from me!

I need to get my own camera... but I don't want to. I'm spoiled by my step-mother's SLR now. That thing is amazing.

So, what do you think of the final cobblestone? Sadly, the lighting wasn't great for these pics so it's hard to really see the various shades of gray and blue in the pics but you can get the idea.

I LOVE it: The Cobblestone Saga. I've enjoyed watching the progress of this thread so much that I didn't want to comment for fear of disturbing the creative flow.
The addition of a bit of blue [I use midnight & Prussian blue myself] has made quite a difference to the groundwork. BTW what you have portrayed is actually paving stones; cobble stones are rounded, regular sized bricks meant to facilitate the movement of horse drawn vehicles. Paving stones are a bit easier on bipedal creatures. VERY NICELY DONE!

DeafNala wrote:

I LOVE it: The Cobblestone Saga. I've enjoyed watching the progress of this thread so much that I didn't want to comment for fear of disturbing the creative flow.
The addition of a bit of blue [I use midnight & Prussian blue myself] has made quite a difference to the groundwork. BTW what you have portrayed is actually paving stones; cobble stones are rounded, regular sized bricks meant to facilitate the movement of horse drawn vehicles. Paving stones are a bit easier on bipedal creatures. VERY NICELY DONE!

Yeah, I think the actual term for this is flagstone, but we started out with the idea of cobblestone so I just kept using that to avoid too much confusion. Thanks for the kind words. I've enjoyed working on this, and I can't wait to actually see it on our table!

Okay, so I apologize for the long load times before... turns out I'm a Wordpress newb. I've begun fixing the posts (starting with the last cobblestone post) to optimize load times for all the images. It should be MUCH faster now.

I know... I know... enough with the cobblestone (or flagstone, whatever) already! Well, I wasn't satisfied with the previous pics so I got some in natural light without the flash making them seem really light. Check out the better pics:
http://www.tabletopgeeks.com/better-cobblestone-pictures/

LOOKIN' GOOD! Watching the Beasty develop has been & will continue to be a REAL pleasure; SO...there is no such thing as TOO much stuff. Keep up the GOOD WORK!

looks sweet Svenn! Good Job

So, I'm gonna test something new out tonight. I'll probably have more pictures up too. Maybe this will be the final final cobblestone.

Lookin good, all your work is paying off!

Okay, here you go. I present to you... flagstone! I really like this one, it's just a tedious method.

http://www.tabletopgeeks.com/flagstone/