Hello!!!

I am kinda new to diorama building, so I don't know that many tricks. I am working on a race scene with Japan GT cup cars. I want to have a really deep black asphalt look for my track surface with the asphalt texture as well. I found spray paint at walmart called fleck stone (or something like that) it seemed to have the texture I was looking for, but I want like a pure black, like fresh asphalt. Does anyone have any ideas? I thought of using the fleck stone paint and spraying over with a semi-gloss black, but nt sure if it will ruin the texture. PLease let me know if you have any tricks!!!!

Asphalt is not completely black... even when freshly rolled out. If you look closely, you will see several shades. I like to use a very coarse sheet of sandpaper cut to size. I spray it flat black, then drybrush several lighter shades of gray over the black.

Tar paper - or black shingles.

Using a small fine kitchen sifter (you can get a little hand held one at any grocery store in the kitchen items isle) take some plain old sandbox sand and sift it onto your roadway base, until you have a nice smooth layer. Using a atomizer bottle mist on some wet water (1 pint of water with a drop or two of dish soap) do this until you have a damp texture to the sand. Next take an eye dropper and apply a mixture of 75% water and 25% elmers white glue apply evenly to the roadway, the wet water will draw the glue mixture into the material. When dry apply a coat of black paint. You have asphalt.

Depending on the scale, I've used "N" Scale fine balast gravel mixed with a couple of big bottles of gloss black and some thinner. I use plastic tube or somesuch to roll it out. if you use a medium gray gravel, wait till it's almost set and drybrush just thinner to uncover the bits of gravel.

As mentioned above, tar paper is a great idea. For myself, I've always had great success with sandpaper. You can get any number of grits to super fine to extra coarse and as for color, I've used some sheets that are not quite solid black, but a mixture of dark gray and black.

In one instance, to create a road, I glued down the sandpaper, then painted in a yellow, dotted line. Turned out well, in my opinion.

Fred

Thank you everyone for the help. I'm going to be experimenting over the next few days, I'll post back with what I end up with.

Well, I figured it out! he answer was right in front of me. I used shingles. We had a bunch of leftovers at work from when we had the roof redone on our drivers lounge. They are 98% jet black with various white specs on it, looks pretty good. A little roof tar for the seams and they disappeared. I'll post pics when I get it done, thanks again for all the help everyone!!!!

How did the asphalt project turn out??? There were some good ideas here...
We used course wet and dry sand paper. Only problem with that is the sheets aren't big enough.


http://img358.imageshack.us/img358/5655/whtoldshardtop21rf.th.jpg (http://img358.imageshack.us/my.php?image=whtoldshardtop21rf.jpg)

http://img358.imageshack.us/img358/2849/prplolds26pl.th.jpg (http://img358.imageshack.us/my.php?image=prplolds26pl.jpg)

Still working on the project, the asphalt turned out great, even the lines on the racetrack. Right now I'm trying to work on the walls of the track, need to find time!!! I'll try to get some pics of the asphalt on here soon

How about a pic? rr

After your track surfus is down use some black crayon to give the surfus a
waxy rubbery look,The starting line of my drag strip looks real.