Making cobblestone streets

My goal was to create an old cobblestone look for the streets. On previous layouts I primarily used styrene sheets for the roads and sidewalks. They always came out clean and crisp, not the look I wanted this time. As I pondered my options, I was reminded of a product that I had used, Durham’s Rock Hard Water Putty, in various forms for other projects, both in and out of the hobby.

I made a form of stacked blue masking tape to define the edge of my roads and used the rail on the inside. I tested in a small area. The initial results were promising, so I did another section. I noticed a slight variation in color and texture due to my imprecise mixtures of water and product, which turned out to be a good thing. Every one of my outside-the-rail pours turned out great. My between-the rails pours were not as good. I thought the mix was stiff enough to prevent leakage. I was wrong. More on that subject later.

Due to poor planning, I had to cut back much of the cured product to have space for my structures. The sidewalks were cast using the same basic method by using tape barriers to raise the level.

Each of my cobblestone roads and sidewalks are hand-carved with a motor tool and bit. I destroyed a couple of bits creating this effect. It took approximately three hours to carve the roads. Right at the end of that phase of the project, I remembered that I could soften the water putty with water. So much for working smarter and not harder.

Once I was pleased with the carvings, it was time to add color. I used a thinned version of Polly Scale Aged Concrete [no longer in production – Ed.] for the sidewalks and portions of the roadway.

The road stones were colored using thinned dabs of black, dark red, dark gray, light gray, light brown, and dark brown. I didn’t paint each cobblestone individually, but rather did small areas of color. To mute the colors and bring out detail, I applied several India ink washes using black, rust, and brown ink. I then drybrushed the cobblestones with light gray and light brown to add highlights.

To finish the project, I started to use the water putty on the space between the rails and even attempted to carve bricks. Due to a combination of my limited skill level and the product’s limitations, the results were disastrous.

Instead, I used styrene brick sheet. After cutting the sheets to fit, I gave them a base coat of dark red spray paint. I used colored pencils (brown, black, purple, and orange) to add visual texture. I finished with India ink washes.

The overall effect is pleasing and sets the stage for the streetcars and cityscape. The water putty poured in smaller areas gave me the imperfections that I was looking for in creating my cobblestone streets. I even have some unplanned potholes to add to the realism.