Acrysion - břidlicová

A slate cast for dark gray areas

Slate has a color that plain gray can never stand in for: it is dark, cool and carries a faint blue undertone. On a model such a shade suits everywhere the surface is meant to look hard and stony: on ship decks and superstructures, on roads and paving in scenes, on the roofing of buildings, on stone bases and on heavily worn machine parts. It also serves well as a starting dark area under later lightening, because it does not blacken a shadow as aggressively as a strong black.

The merit of this tone shows only in company with another color. On its own it can come out flat, but as soon as white is added to it and the surface is lightened in places, the structure of the material stands out. On paving and decking it is enough to color a few randomly chosen pieces in a slightly different shade and the area immediately stops looking as if it had been poured from one pot.

Working the material

The binder is acrylic, it is thinned with water and the paint reckons with being laid on by spraying; the contents of the bottle have to be shaken thoroughly before work. On large areas of a scene it suits to lay the paint on in two stages and to judge the area from a distance between them, because dark tones are assessed differently in the hand than on a finished scene. Once cured, the surface takes dry pigments well as well as a light polish, which draws the natural flat sheen of stone out of a slate surface. Remove the paint residues from the gun while they are still fresh with plain water; a dried coat will already need the cleaner made for this range.