Asphalt base

[Beans]

Just wanted to share a quick discovery I made somewhat by chance.

Turns out that the underside of an asphalt roof shingle works pretty good to replicate parking lot or roadways.

Also, when painting lines the texture gives it a realistic look.  

Lucky for me that my neighbors at the time constantly had shingles blow off of their roof.

 

Here are some examples from a model I did when I was just getting into auto modeling.  All the discolorations and stains came from nature.  All I did was paint the lines and create the parking blocks from craft foam.

[Ironman63]

Cool!

[Claude Thibodeau]

HI Joseph!

What a great discovery, thank you for sharing it. My house will get new roofing this september, so I'll stock a few choice sheets.

CT 

[CabDriver]

What a great find!  I was wondering how to make a base just like this recently...I ended up shooting airbrush gray over a little piece of wood add adding crackle medium to have it start to break up a little:

That shingle is WAY more convincing though!  GREAT tip, thank you!

[Tom Geiger]

The secret to all my outdoor photos?

Here it is sitting on the kitchen table.. a board sprayed with Floquil parking lot and road spray paint! 

[oldscool]

Thanks for the tip.

[bisc63]

That really has a nice blacktop appearance!

[peteski]

6 hours ago, Tom Geiger said:

Here it is sitting on the kitchen table.. a board sprayed with Floquil parking lot and road spray paint! 

Come on Tom,  I use Floquil fairly often, and even have their color chips booklets, and I have never seen the sell paints called "parking lot" or "road spray".  But whatever are the "real" color names, your base looks good too.

For another idea, I also use roofing material to represent asphalt.  It is a leftover piece of rubber roofing sheet.   What is nice about it is that it is larger (about 6 sq. feet) and it can be rolled up easily and taken to some place which will give me a realistic background (like an empty company parking lot on a weekend).

Edited July 2, 2021 by peteski

[Brizio]

I prefer sand paper. More choices on the grid to simulate any asphalt, and works on any scale.

[Tom Geiger]

11 hours ago, peteski said:

Come on Tom,  I use Floquil fairly often, and even have their color chips booklets, and I have never seen the sell paints called "parking lot" or "road spray".  But whatever are the "real" color names, your base looks good too.

Here’s the cans I have.. it was special diorama paint, sprayed thick with the speckled finish. They were for road surfaces.

I guess these are no longer available. A pity since it was an interesting product and both my cans are empty. I couldn’t find the black’s cap.

Edited July 2, 2021 by Tom Geiger

[peteski]

1 hour ago, Tom Geiger said:

Here’s the cans I have.. it was special diorama paint, sprayed thick with the speckled finish. They were for road surfaces.

I guess these are no longer available. A pity since it was an interesting product and both my cans are empty. I couldn’t find the black’s cap.

The black is likely the is standard black paint but the other one  . . . very interesting.  I never used any of their spray can paints (just the 1 oz. bottles), so that is likely why I missed it.  But I think I've seem similar speckled spray paints either at a hardware or a crafts store. 

[Tom Geiger]

1 hour ago, peteski said:

The black is likely the is standard black paint but the other one  . . .

No the black is speckled.. that’s what is on my photo board. I just lost the cap.

Unfortunately I don’t have anything sprayed with the concrete color. Originally my photo setup was a box with one color on either side. It got bent up and I did the board to replace is. The gray paint is done, otherwise I’d spray the back of my photo board!

Here’s the black, just as it sprayed right out of the can.

Here’s what the gray looked like.

And here was my original stand. 

[peteski]

That looks good Tom!

[Deuces ll]

😎👍

[youpey]

thats awesome, i just wish i could find someone getting roof shingles replaced so i could have a naturally weathered one like that.   great share

[StevenGuthmiller]

I'll have to consider this.

They are re-roofing a Catholic church just down the street from us.

I could pick up a whole dumpster full of used shingles if I wanted.

 

 

 

 

Steve

[Zippi]

The pic that has the crack in the shingle looks like the asphalt streets in my area.

[EngineerBob]

Beans, great use of found materials. I've used sheet cork but then you still have to paint it skillfully to get the variation of colors that you got with just a shingle.

[bisc63]

Been thinking about this material, and I think I would use it only as a temporary base; for photographing and such. I would be concerned about such an asphalt-based material having adverse effects on vinyl (or plastic) tires.

[Beans]

On 7/16/2021 at 7:17 PM, EngineerBob said:

Beans, great use of found materials. I've used sheet cork but then you still have to paint it skillfully to get the variation of colors that you got with just a shingle.

The cork base looks good.  The funny part is I was working on one (and by working on I mean, I was trying to repaint one that I made that looked horrible) when I discovered the shingle.

20 hours ago, bisc63 said:

Been thinking about this material, and I think I would use it only as a temporary base; for photographing and such. I would be concerned about such an asphalt-based material having adverse effects on vinyl (or plastic) tires.

Good point.  I have only had the model sitting on it for a little less than a year.  I haven't noticed any ill effects to date but will take a look at it tonight and see if I notice anything with the tires.  

[MrMiles]

36 minutes ago, Beans said:

The cork base looks good.  The funny part is I was working on one (and by working on I mean, I was trying to repaint one that I made that looked horrible) when I discovered the shingle.

Good point.  I have only had the model sitting on it for a little less than a year.  I haven't noticed any ill effects to date but will take a look at it tonight and see if I notice anything with the tires.  

I imagine it would take significant heat to heat up the shingle enough to damage the tire. Assuming the single was free of tar

Edited July 19, 2021 by MrMiles

[misterNNL]

On 7/3/2021 at 9:20 PM, StevenGuthmiller said:

I'll have to consider this.

They are re-roofing a Catholic church just down the street from us.

I could pick up a whole dumpster full of used shingles if I wanted.

 

 

 

 

Steve

Send me the contractor's phone number and I am willing to contact them to see if I can arrange to have the whole dumpster emptied directly into your front yard. Always ready to help out a fellow modeler out 🙂

[Tom Geiger]

On 7/3/2021 at 9:20 PM, StevenGuthmiller said:

They are re-roofing a Catholic church just down the street from us.

I could pick up a whole dumpster full of used shingles if I wanted.

Just be sure they are modern asphalt and not old asbestos roofing!  

[Venom]

Looking through this thread it is interesting to see the various ideas used... Now, I hope I don’t hurt anyone’s feelings, but for visual realism I think Beans’ upside-down shingle and Peteski’s roofing sheet are the best. EngineerBob’s looks really awesome too, but he admitted it was a more painstaking process.