Painting stone?

[General Roos]

I have just stripped a statue plinth and some tiles for my Innsmouth table after a horrible painting attempt with a sponge. Does anyone have any tips or suggestions how to paint realistic stone? 

[Christian]

A couple of questions first:

Is the surface smooth or textured?

What colour would you like it to be?

General advice would be to start with a dark colour, and progress to lighter tones with either a drybrush method, or dabbing at with the different colours.

[General Roos]

Christian - thanks.

It´s a textures surface. I want it to be light grey!

[Centaur_Seducer]

I'd say that you start with a medium grey basecoat and then drybrush it heavily so its light.
However, this usually looks extremely daft and childish, so you better do some heavy washing/glazing in various colours just to add some depth and variation to the plinth Green, red, purple, brown, ochre, black. Its up to you.

[Nimrod]

For easy rocks maybe this tutorial will help you:  http://www.necrotales.com/necroTutorials/tut_base_rock01.php

[General Roos]

Thanks guys! 

Great tutorial Nimrod.

[Christian]

Well, if it is already textured I would start with some light grey as your base coat.

Then, water down some black gesso (acrylic craft undercoat stuff) and do a coat of that.

Some succesive coats will deepen then details (like what Silversixx said).

While it's drying I would gently dry brush some of the lighter grey onto the edges. Once this is dry I would go over it again.

I guess the temptation is do it in a couple of coats but if that's not working for you, the steps above could give you a different result.

That's how I painted the thing pictured here:

[Wirelizard]

For grey stone, start with a black undercoat, then successive layers of grey drybrushing, getting lighter/paler with each drybrush. I've also used brown/tan/yellowish drybrush layers for a good sandstone look, although I don't have any good photos of those pieces.


Stone Wall Painting Tutorial by WireLizard, on Flickr

(a bit more detail in the writeup over on The Warbard)