Topic: Scenery
I hope I don't seem to be harping on this subject, but I feel highlights and shadows play a critical role in creating a natural appearance for your rock castings. Use of appropriate color may be of greater importance. However, highlights and shadows are crucial factors for convincing rocky scenery.
Last night I took a closer look at the rock formations in some of my layout photos. In the close-up view I think you can see the effects of the techniques I have used to create believable rock formations. We can't approach the intensity of a sunny day on our indoor layouts, but we can attempt to emulate the directional character of sunlight. That is why I choose to use halogen lighting rather than fluorescent. I also try to direct the lamps in such a way that illumination comes from the side of the most typical viewing location. These actions mean that layout lighting is itself creating highlighs and shadows. Whereas the intensity of our halogen lamps is incapable of shining with the brightness of sunny highlights or casting the depth of natural shadows, we must give the artificial lights some support with our painting techniques.
You will notice highlighted portions of the rocks are not white. They are a paler tint of the stone colors. This is the result of my use of very thin white paint when I dry brush the rocks. The thin white paint doesn't hide the rock color. It combines with the color as a lighter tint the original. And this is why I call my technique bleaching rather than highlighting. My technique is designed to enhance, not substitute for the highlighting action of the layout lighting.
Likewise you can see the shadows are not black but merely a darker shade of the rock colors. By applying the black color as the first step in painting the plaster castings it darkens the succeeding color applications. It does not cover up those colors as the black will if it is applied last. Good rocky scenery must start with plaster rock casts possessing as much detail as possible, but it is our treatment of lighting and color which will cause the viewers to think they are looking at real rocks.
