Vlog Day 6 - Almost Done with the Board

5 AM Airbrushing

Starting day six getting this board into the final stretch. Primed gray (not black) because I want the overall board pretty bright.

The Basalt Effect

Looking at reference photos, basalt looks like it was shaded with an airbrush in real life. So:

1. White primer - Hit the middle of squares
2. Burnt umber - Around edges, getting between all the cracks
3. Pale blue gray - Over the top

On video it looks like the pre-shading was washed out, but it’s still there—very cool effect in real life. Trust me.

Three Colors of Stone

Now visually balancing three different stone colors. Going to hit everything with a wash, then dry brush the same color to unify it.

Having three different colors makes it seem more organic—stone isn’t the same color everywhere. No formula, just eyeballing what looks good and spacing them around.

The Magic: Dark Streaking Grime

Slathering dark streaking grime over everything. Hit it with a heat gun to accelerate dry time. Once mostly dried, come back with a sponge—remove most from the middle of stones, let it stay in cracks.

This is the magic that makes it actually look like stone.

Green Wash Experiment

Thinking about adding green wash in certain parts for a moldy/tinged look. Experimenting on different parts of the board to see what works.

Coming down to the wire for the video going live—want it to dry and do more work before posting!

Transcript

All right, starting off day six by getting this board into the final stretch. Uh, so we primed this gray. I didn’t prime it black because I still want the overall board to be pretty bright. And what I’m doing here is just a bunch of pre-shading with the airbrush. So I’m coming back in with a white primer and just hitting the middle of the squares because the effect we’re trying to achieve here is basalt.

So looking at my reference photo, I can see that like these look like they were shaded with an airbrush in real life. So I’m hitting all these with a white. Then I’m coming around the edges and hitting them with burnt umber. And this is mostly just to get in between all of the cracks in between each of the squares and just further that pre-shading. And it looks pretty crazy here.

And now I’m going to come back over the top with a pale blue gray. And because I’m doing this at 5:00 a. m. this morning and I’m in uh like a my workshop that has shitty lighting for this area. Uh it’s under iridescent lights, so you can’t really see the true effects, but essentially on video it looks like all my pre-shading was just washed out by this gray, but it’s not.

Like it’s it’s still very it’s a very cool effect in real life. So you just got to kind of trust me there. And now what I’m doing is coming back in and visually balancing out three different colors of stone. I’m going to hit all of this with a wash next. And I’m going to dry brush it all the same color.

And that’s going to unify this all together. But by having these this three different colors, it’s gonna just make it seem more organ organic and kind of create that I guess illusion that it’s different colored stones because I mean stone isn’t the same color, right? And I’m sure you’ve seen this in a ton of other videos. Uh I’m just using these three colors and just trying to balance it out. Like I’m eyeballing it.

There isn’t really like a formula. I mean, I’m sure there is a formula, but I didn’t use one and I just kind of did what I thought looked good and spaced them out and around the boards. get it to this point. And now we are going to let this dry while I spend all day going to different client offices. And then when I get back tonight, I will finish this up, get the video edited, and get it posted before midnight.

So I I think this one’s going to come down to the wire in terms of the video going live. Uh but only just because of I want this to dry and I want to actually do more work on it before I post the video. So stay tuned. Okay. So, what I’m doing now is coming over the top of just everything with dark streaking grime and just slathering this on here.

I’m going to come back and hit it with a heat gun uh to accelerate the dry time. And then once it’s dried, uh, mostly dried, I’m going to come back in with a sponge and remove most of it from the middle section of the stones and let it stay in the cracks and just get this really cool dirty effect. Like, this is the magic that’s going to make this board actually look like stone. And at this point, I’m kind of looking at it and I’m thinking, should I do like a green wash in certain parts because I know I want I just want it to be kind of like like moldy or like tinged with the green or should I wait and let the dark streaking grime dry more before I try that? Uh, so you’re just going to kind of see me experimenting here on different parts of the board and this is what I ended up with.