Yeah, I've always felt that model railroading had the potential to be sensuous. ) Will be working on the river bed next. Picked up some rocks near Mt Shasta that I plan to pulverize into talos for the river bank.
Progress at last. Only three weeks since last progress! I must be setting a new speed record. After staring at the gray whale for weeks on end I decided I didn't like the mountain contours so I dynamited, (sharp knife) about 2 million tons of rock, (blue foam) and began the process of adding rock castings made from Bragdon's cast resin. Kind of slow going, but so was the building of Rome. I'll be covering about 2/3 of the mountain with castings and then after painting them I'll begin adding talos and then go to the river bed area. Trees, shrubs, grass and bushes will then follow. Onward....... I even went back after the pictures were taken and made some more cuts in the foam. Now I know kind of how Michelangelo must have felt.....'a little off the top, no, some off the sides too.'
Jeff, get behind the line. He promised to do mine first. Loren, it never look good at the beginning, but slowly each layer will add more color and life. Soon, the gray whale will be no more.
Ok guys, no crowding or pushing and shoving......there's plenty of room at the pig trough. At this point I have to tell you the story of my pink Castle Crags module back about 4 or 5 years ago. That's the one with the moving cars. I had just completed the pink foam basic shape and had run out of time to do any painting on it before I traveled to Portland for either a GTE or WGH show, I forget which. When I set it up and had the track connected and had left for the evening, (Friday night), little did I know that Robin and Chris from our CZM club in Portland were just about to puke looking at the pink monster. When they were sure I was out of the building, they (borrowed) the mountain top, took it home and proceeded to bathe it in gray paint. Kind of reminds you of the gray whale I've been working on doesn't it. Well, the next morning I got back to the expo hall before Chris and Robin had returned with the mountain top and I was flabbergasted that someone would steal my pink mountain, even though it did resemble Pepto Bismol, that pink stuff for acid indigestion. I guess the pink mountain made Chris and Robin sick to their stomach. I was standing there trying to imagine someone really hating my mountain that much to have to steal it when in they walked with a gray mountain that looked suspiciously like my pink one that was missing. To make a long story short, they confessed to 'just having to take it home and fix/paint it' End of story, but I did end up paying them for three cans of gray spray paint. So, what does pink have to do with what is going on now you ask? I was looking at my blue foam last night and got equally as nauseous as Chris and Robin probably had been, so just a few minutes ago I found some gray paint and proceeded to turn it back into solid granite gray. I did coat the blue foam last night with a layer of plaster cloth, followed by a coating of Sculptamold, the reason being that I find it easier to plant trees if I am punching through a thin layer of Sculptamold covered plaster cloth. I use an ice pick type of instrument found at any train show in the hobby tools display booth. Punch a hole, fill with undiluted Elmer's or other type of hobby tack glue and insert the tree trunk and leave it to set. If I'm planting trees thin enough to allow the forest floor to be seen, then I either use green spray paint or thick Elmer's for adhesive and spread different shades of green and earthen colors of ground foam for the forest floor. This module will have lots of exposed rock and rock talos covering much of the surface so I'm leaving most of the surface the basic gray. These photos show the new gray paint and about 2/3rds of the rock castings before I begin to do the detailing with rock and then greenery. Well, that's my progress for the last 24 hours. I'm also doing taxes, so who knows how long before I can break out of my deepening depression and gloom and get back to some fun stuff.
I'll answer both your question Chris and also Jim's with this post. This module will have deciduous as well as evergreen trees on it and I estimate roughly 300 give or take. I think really good looking, easily made, economical deciduous trees have yet to be invented. Sort of like the issue with realistic water features. I've not tried several water options and I'm not real happy with what I've done thus far, but that is another subject. When you see 100 trees next to each other, it is disappointing as to how little space they can take up depending upon how closely they are spaced to each other. Just ask Jim as he is an expert in tree planting, both in Z and HO. BTW, for those who have not seen Jim's "How to" on making HO scale evergreen trees, it would be very enlightening to view it. Jim show them the link....... The white you see in the previous pictures is mostly cast resin rocks made from Joel Bragdon's rock molds. Really good Z scale rock molds are kind of hard to come by since the actual rocks used in Joel's master mold making adventures in the great out doors have details that for the most part are rather large for Z scale. Proper scaled rock molds are available, but not in profusion. The molds I used are coated with a white primer prior to pouring and the white paint attaches itself to the cast resin, thus the white appearance. The cast resin turns white in the first place. You could make it easier on yourself by using a gray primer on the molds and the rocks would come out gray colored depending on how thoroughly you coated the molds prior to pouring. You'd still have to color the material used between rock castings. I'll cast a few more rocks with gray primer to show example. I am not aware if Joel has ever built any Z scale scenery, but when I helped him with Tom Miller's layout construction several years back, Joel liked to use a caulking gun to fill in the joints between rock castings. I prefer instead using the Sculptamold which is used on my modules. Both caulking and Sculptamold have some draw backs because you have to spend some pretty good effort to make the fill in areas look like the rocks from the molds. Seems that no technique for scenery making is fool proof and easy. God spoke and it was so, we however have to work a lot harder to make it look real........
Thanks Loren. I thought they (the rocks) weren't Sculptamold, but knowing you are an expert in its use I thought I would try to learn something new. Correct until you get to HO scale or larger it takes a lot of trees to fill a given space. Thanks for the kind words about my evergreen trees. Since I have your permission let me post the link that has the tree info in it. I have a thread on another site and in 15 months I have over 101,000 views. Quite astonishing really. The thread contains virtually everthing I know about model railroading, from benchwork to photography. It seems to be worth while with the view count as the ultimate proof of life. The thread is valid for all scales Z, N, HO, S, and O. Anything a new or old modeler may need is in the thread pages. Somewhere inside are the tree building pages as well as using a new product for rocks and using plastic garden webbing instead of more traditional ways of making scenery. Click this and enjoy. http://www.modelrailroadforums.com/forum/showthread.php?t=25919 Here's a sneak peek. Thanks, Loren
You need my permission to post your link material? I don't think so. You don't need my permission for anything you do. I salute you and your excellence. Oh, and I hate that word expert. Comes from two words.....ex, meaning has been, and spurt, a small drip. And no one in their right mind would ever question 101,000 views. Maybe we should start calling you the modeling guru? I won't ask what Gayle calls you )
Here are a couple shots of castings with gray primer. I don't always fill the seams between castings. You can hide seams with bushes and such....the easy way out. There is a lot of seam work needed though before any painting of the castings.
Finally.......movement on the Gray Whale My how time flys when you aren't getting anything done. I began my "Gray Whale" module as it is affectionately known back on Sept 28th 2011 and last posted progress on Mardh 31 2013. It has been two years now and not much was accomplished in modeling until this last month in which I have gotten the Whale just about done........still lacking a bunch of trees, bushes and the stream bed which I have been inquiring about lately in another thread. You recall the condition of the module way bach in 2013, and here are pictures just now taken to show comparrison. The plan is to have water poured this week and the rest of the scenery finished by mid month April........maybe in time to celebrate tax day (
Great to see you back at it. I know how you feel. I started an extension and got caught up in side jobs and I am getting that itch I will say that is the nice thing about trains. They will be there waiting when you get back. Show those finished shots with trains to get me motivated!
Damn fine work there, sir. I like the "spray the track" method of rusting up the rails - and your great sense of balance to the scenery.
Photo #1 has to be the most realistic train scenery I have ever seen. Possibly you could get rid of the perimeter borders and go into business of creating new land, That is spectacular!!!!! ...don
Looks great! That will become a nice piece of river. Maybe you should put a raft on river before the 'water' is cured.
