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Earth base paint color Scenery and structures
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Regular poster 114 posts hoffertg Regular poster 114 posts
hoffertg

Does anyone have a good shade of brown paint to use on foam board to represent a soil color. I realize that their many variations of soil color lot depending on the part of the country that one lives. This will be in the Midwest (Indiana) and there will be some grass and other details added.
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Jackh Prolific poster 2,043 posts
Jackh

Color Matching

Are you in Indiana? 

You might try going to Lowes or who ever in your area and look at paint cards and bring some home and lay them on the dirt, pick the closest and get a quart.

Cheaper are craft paints. I would pick a few of them or carry some dirt in with you and see if you can figure out which one is closest.

Jack
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Pennsy_Nut Prolific poster 3,653 posts
Pennsy_Nut

Just MHO

Jack. That choice of paint depends on how much hoffertg needs to cover. When I did my layout, I painted the entire foam board. Top, bottom, sides, ends. And the use of ground color on top is most important - obviously. But a little bottle of craft paint sounds wrong to me. I'd suggest a quart or gallon depending on "as I said" how much to cover. As for color. Yes. Take a bit of some local and use that for a comparison. A photo is not good. Use the actual dirt. But I must add that my covering the entire surface was great. No worries about "covering" it. An accidental spot or two that isn't covered don't mean a thing. Not noticeable by anyone unless they are a rivet counter.

Morgan Bilbo, DCS50, UR93, UT4D, SPROG IIv4, JMRI. PRR 1952.
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mike horton Frequent poster 515 posts
mike horton

I would hope your going

to cover the painted foam with dirt, grass, etc, so any color brown, medium to light should work.

Morgan, why the bottom?
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blindog10 Prolific poster 3,325 posts
blindog10

"Oops paint"

It's what we call those cans of mis-mixed paint that all paint stores seem to have.  See what they've got in quart or gallon cans.  Look for tans or browns.

Scott Chatfield
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Pennsy_Nut Prolific poster 3,653 posts
Pennsy_Nut

Bottom?

Sorry. I built a shelf layout. At arm pit height. So most people will be looking at the bottom. I painted it white - to increase the light available under the layout to see what's on the walls - pictures, etc. Just FYI. I also placed all wires on top, so the bottom is totally clear. Another thought I had. I like to paint anything that could be subjected to water or humidity. Wood is a better example. When I had built any layout with wood, I also painted ALL surfaces. Just an idiosyncracy of mine. Finally, it looks good. Another < small grin> . Thanks for asking.

Morgan Bilbo, DCS50, UR93, UT4D, SPROG IIv4, JMRI. PRR 1952.
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joef MRH Founder 17,485 posts
joef

Remember to factor in layout lighting

Remember to factor in layout lighting, otherwise just using color strips outside next to the dirt to color match isn’t going to work! The color you pick and use on your layout will be way too dark and probably way too orange as well. Instead, get a digital photo of a scene with a dirt color you like (mid-day and sunny the best) and go to the paint store and get some color chips, then go home and take everything into your layout room and view it under the layout lighting. Bring up your reference photo on your phone or tablet or laptop. Now under the layout lighting, find the color chip that matches the dirt in the photo. Notice what you’ve done here. You have selected a color that looks like outside dirt in a photo under your layout lighting and that’s the color you will paint your dirt. The result? You get layout dirt that looks like it’s outside, which is what we want under our much less bright and less blue outside light.

Joe Fugate​
Publisher, Model Railroad Hobbyist magazine

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