Do you mean a forge that looks like a concrete block in simple terms? Yes, this is possible.
Can this new concrete forge block be painted? Yes
Do you mean that the block has the appearance of a concrete block with a candle on top of it - but is actually only 1 block?
Yes, this is possible, but not as simple as changing codes around. You would need to create a block in a program like Unity with this appearance then export it as a unity3d file.
Then link to this model in the xml and change the MultiBlockDim value to "1,2,1".
I haven't read all of this article but a good starting point is to browse through the ItemIconAtlas folder