Diorama FX Landscape Texture Warm Orange 1-2mm

Chippings the color of old brick

As soon as the grain grows past a millimeter it stops behaving like dust and starts to hold its shape. With a warm orange tone that makes a material for places where something has collapsed or been tipped out: a heap from a shot-up wall, a road laid to a homestead, a spoil pile by a mine head. In all those scenes the color carries part of the story, because crushed masonry keeps a shade that neither concrete nor stone has.

From a heap to a road

Build a heap on a core of coarser compound and use the chippings only as a surface layer; you will save material and the heap will hold its shape. With a road proceed the other way round: scatter a thin layer, press it down with a suitable tool, for example the back of a spoon, and only then fix it. A used road should be compacted, whereas a fresh spoil pile should be loose and angular.

• Into wheel ruts add a finer grain, as the coarse stays at the edges.
• Do not level the edges of heaps; they are meant to crumble into their surroundings.
• Complete pieces of masonry with larger fragments so that the origin of the material shows.
• Bring the color out with a darker glaze in the gaps, otherwise the uniformity remains.

This shade is made in three grades, and this one is the coarsest of them. Anyone who needs larger pieces in the foreground will reach for black or yellow grain of the top size and color it as needed. Matching two shades tends to be easier than looking for a substitute, and a light glaze over both is enough.