Ok--I guess I can call the base done.
I did have a setback along the way. You may remember my last image showing the sandpaper concrete that I made. Since then I painted, weathered, and clear coated it. I planned on trying some washes over the clear, and the clear is where it went sideways.
I used the Humbrol Clear that I mentioned further down this thread. Well--to save time, I brushed it on. It was a stroke of genius! LOL. They tout this stuff as great for brush painting. And for the record--I think it is. Not so much on my sandpaper slab. What I didn't think of is that this stuff has the consistency of water. It goes on very wet. You might imagine what happened next. The clear leached under the sandpaper causing it to curl up along the joins. Blasted! I pondered on if I could force it down once dried. In the end I figured that no way it will ever look right again. It was a dreaded do-over.
So--this time I did things a little different. As follows:
1. I went with 600 grit instead of the 400. To my eye, it looks more to scale.
2. I made each section of the slab out of styrene. Whereas before I had one solid piece with only the sandpaper cut into sections. In this case I am cutting both. Why? I figured I could paint and weather the pieces without the use of a wash by painting the shades within the joins before attaching them to the sublayer. (That's a mouthful)
3. I applied the pieces to a sheet of clear styrene. As before I used spru-goo. Why clear? Mostly because it is very thin. I didn't want the piece too thick. With it clear it added the benefit where I could paint color from below the joins, as a way to enhance them. How much this improved the look, I am not sure. I am pretty sure it improved some.
4. I used weathering powder around the joins and where the feet of the rocket stand will sit. I then painted over the weathering using the same color paint as the base coat. In effect--creating a filter to push back the powder some.
5. A final coat of Testers Dullcote mixed with Glosscote is applied.
That's that. I am not blown away by it, but it looks ok. My concrete weathering mo jo needs work. But--it will have to do for this build.
It was tough to image the piece where you can see the subtle shades. The human eye gets it, the camera not so much.
Next up: Masking the rocket.