A Tar roof Out of Masking Tape and Paint

Work continues, and this time it is on an often neglected area of the structure everyone sees, the roof! The latest development is the addition of some roofing detail, like the tar roof, concrete facade painting,  and some vents from the Walthers Rooftop Details kit. 

To make the tar roof I used off-white masking tape, cutting it into small rectangles. I overlapped the tape tiles some and painted with craft store acrylic paint. The different colors are the result of different mixes of black and white. Then I used a black fine point sharpie to draw the black lines around each of the tiles edges. The roof turned out very nice in my humble opinion. The tape really gave it good texture. I decided to make it look like each roof section was replaced/laid at a different time, hence the three different shades of black. 

Under the tape is styrene that I painted on both sides with a rattle can. The inside is gray and the top black. Painting the top wasn't really necessary since I planned on adding the tape roof anyway. But there being no harm in extra black paint, I gave it a good coat of black. It further blocks any light coming thru, also it hides any areas I may have missed when laying down the tape. 

The only little thing I don't like is that the sharpie lines give off a red tint. It is more obvious the darker the tape was painted. Im planning to weather the roof further, and add dull coat which will hopefully solve the issue. 

As far as this project has come….it still has a long way to go just to be considered as "base layer complete". Meaning everything done with the exception of adding details, decals and the like.

For example I still need to finish the base coat in the loading dock interior. Then paint the I-beams and columns (my guess is a red color or something? Still uncertain).  Not to mention I still need to install interior and exterior lighting.