Base scenery is drying now… and yes here we go with the drying thing again. Once this hardens up in a day or two, prolly 2 and after I get back from my trip to Groton I’m going to sprinkle the snow on it then see about some people here and there. I kinda wish I had more of the silver/white trees instead of the blue/white trees as they look better in this scene. I bought them at Hobby Lobby but all they have now is the blue/white, and that’s all they have had since I got these ones a few years ago. Oh well I got what I got and that's good enough. I was going for whimsical on the trees and I win! oh, I didn’t get pics but I got the hotel and Fresh Market lit up and good to go. I kinda wish I had blanked out more windows inside the hotel and maybe painted the inside floor area a dark color but oh well. From a distance it will look just fine. I am going to make a cover for the underside that will hide and protect the wiring and stain the wood on the outside. Then I can officially call this done!
Ok so things are done for now. I’m on a business trip to CT for a few days so no work will get done on the layout. This is the last step before the snow! That’s next. So here ya go with the scenery finished and some of the different lighting choices I have. Overall layout with no lighting turned on. Basic Lighting turned on, notice no lights on the tree and the middle shop is also not lit up. Tree is turned on. The middle business is lit up. And now the apartment above is lit up. Sorry can’t do both at the same time. And a glamor shot of the street!
Simply awesome! My skill limitations constrain me to the built-ups. I have a similar sized area on my forthcoming layout, and have started collecting the buildings. Thanks for the inspiration!
Jake, the only skill you need to do what I did is patience. I’m not an expert modeler by any means, but I just go slow and do a little here and a little there. One thing that will help is a good set of brushes and to take care of them. My paints are just the Apple Barrel paints from Walmart and the similar ones from Michaels and Hobby Lobby. They are water wash up which makes cleaning brushes easy, and best of all they have hundreds of colors and they are cheap. Brushes can be a bit intimidating. You don’t need to spend $20 per brush, the trains are already expensive the tools don’t always need to be. Walmart, hobby lobby, Michaels or just about any craft store will have brush packs which will give you a variety of shapes and sizes. I personally like wooden handled ones with animal hair bristles. Synthetic bristles to me are too coarse and they don’t flow right. I use the small round and 1/4” straight cut brushes the most but others have a place too. The Fresh Market was painted with only those 2 brushes, but I used about 4 or 5 different brushes for other jobs on the little layout. Brush packs like the one I have been using can be had for $10-$20, the set I’m currently using was $12 at Wally World. For brush care, most importantly DO NOT SQUISH THEM! Filling up a cup or bowl of water to wash between colors is a great idea, I personally use the kitchen sink since it is close by, but don’t squish the brush into the bottom of the cup of water. This ruins the shape of the brush and that will effect your ability to paint with it next time. I just rub the bristles between my fingers lightly as I run them under warm water. Speaking of cleaning… clean often. If you are doing a large area such as the walls of a building you will notice the brush getting stiff, and the paint doesn’t seem to flow off the brush as easily. Well that’s because there is paint trying to dry inside the bristles. Don’t be afraid to clean the brush in the middle of a coat of paint on your model. That is perfectly normal and will produce a much nicer overall finish. Speaking of coats… you will rarely ever get away with a single coat of paint. The walls of almost every building I have ever painted have taken at least 2 coats, sometimes 3. When doing brick work like Fresh Market, each time I would use my 1/4” flat brush with just the tip wet with paint then wipe across the model repeatedly until there were no blobs of paint in the grout work and the paint was spread as far as it could possibly go. Yes the first coat looked horrible (you can’t really tell from the early pics I took, but trust me, it looked bad in person). My next coat was the same thing, really spread out the paint making sure to not leave blobs in the grout. After the second coat it wasn’t airbrush perfect, but it was good and made the building look cared for but aged slightly. So go get yourself a cheap kit or two, even an HO scale kit, get some quality brushes and a few colors of Apple Barrel paints and practice. Believe it or not my hands are no longer perfectly steady any more, so I rest my arms on my desk to give me support, which reduces the shakes. Also, if you do mess up something you can either wipe it off really quick (but this sometimes causes more mess to fix later) or you can just come back later and touch it up with the previous color and fix the goof. This went way longer than I anticipated, but I think we can all benefit from what was posted. So get out there and build something!
No snow yet. Been pretty busy, too much so to snow. But it’s coming don’t worry. Right now how about a permanent home! I got rid of the TV stand that was in this corner… or at least I will be selling it soon, and bought some more of those same shelves I got for under the layout. I really like these so I figured why not. It puts the layout nearby where I usually sit to relax, as well as where I work from, so I get to watch my little train as I work. Win win.
Hmm, That size has me thinking of a t-track module... Maybe with a thin companion module behind it for integration into a t-track layout. A dbl x-over would allow t-track traffic to run the loop once before continuing on, or just keep a local orbiting it while mainline traffic passes by.
Looks awesome measurements please, we all want to know, me thinks? I do at least I have several 2'x4' wonder that is also that size?
This is 30” x 16” overall. The tracks are 150mm for the ends, the wobble in the back are 315mm and just a couple straight tracks for the front.
Wow, so much detail in such a small space, this built is amazing Thanks for the measurements, much appreciated, now I can see it in my head Or in your pictures, which is better Had no idea so much, in such a small space.
Still no snow, been too busy for that type of work, but maybe I will get a chance on Xmas Eve for snow. I mean doesn’t everyone love a white Christmas? But… I did add my tram layout to my shelf. It overhangs slightly, I thought it was 19” square but apparently it’s 21” square. My shelves are 20 deep so…. Oh well, still looks good.
Maybe it will Snow for real and you can just set it outside in the snow. What could possibly go wrong
