Paint question.

[jdubbya]

I'm building one of these prop tables out of two inch pink foam board, and using pvc for the legs. I have the foam all cut and have started to glue some of the pieces, but am wondering about painting techniques. I'm figuring a light gray base, but I really want this same old worn stone look. Any tips/techniques will be appreciated. I'll have more pics up soon of the work so far. Still have to get the skulls and work out some detailing.
Thanks!
http://i130.photobucket.com/albums/p255/jdubbya2006/1016028.jpg

[Devils Chariot]

Paint it with light gray latex. Let it dry completely, a day or or two. Then make a wash with some black acrylic thinned heavily with water. A ratio of 10 parts water to 1 part paint. Do a overall wash with this, brush it one even. this is going to settle into the pores and give you the basic stone look. When that drys, you'll want to do some wet on wet work. Spritz the foam with some water, then take a full brush of the wash, and touch the top edges of the prop and let gravity drag the paint down. By applying it to already wet surface, the water will pull the paint around and feather the edges. Try this with different strengths of wash, and even add some browns or greens to give it a real outdoors look. Even white can be brushed in wet on wet, and gives you some real depth.

[jdubbya]

Thanks DC. Good info. My craftiness has much to be desired but I want this to turn out really well. Appreciate it!

[joker]

Actually using the method DC mentioned will more than likely give you a more realistic result than the prop pictured above. Nice prop choice for a project.

[jdubbya]

Nice prop choice for a project.

Thanks. When these came out at Spencers a few years back, I really wanted one and while they looked great, they were pretty crappy and not sturdy at all. Even after Halloween I could have gotten one for $75.00 but the legs were cracked and it had other flaws. I had a bunch of foam board laying around so figured I'd give this a try. I'm taking my time as I want the detail to be good. It will be a centerpiece prop in one of my scenes. I may not even have it done this year but I'm picking away at it.

[Spanky]

You might want to try Keeba's tombstone painting method:
http://www.hedstorm.net/HAUNT/instructions/tombstones/index.html
It would work great with that, methinks.

[eanderso13]

That's a sweet idea! For paint, I like the ideas here a lot. What I did recently was something similar for some very white statues I picked up at Michael's...I mixed some black and green paint with water in a spray bottle. I sprayed the mixture on the statues and then set my garden hose nozzle on MIST and started from the top. The more you mist, the more the color runs, so you can get a varying degree of "age" on parts by changing how much water you thin the spray mixture with.