Definately a massive improvement,luv the colour variation. Got boxes of those trees ready to be sprayed & coloured.Put some ballast down lol...
Thanks, Jason!I know, I need to buy some decent ballast. Where can I get AZ rock & mineral ballast cheap online? PM me with your fav dealer that carries AZ R&M ballast..... Tom, I think I did that backwards, trying to accentuate the height of the hill, by putting the taller trees in the back. I have a schwack of small trees, up to 1.5" tall, so I will try that on the opposite end of the layout near Tunnel 25.
Wow, those are incredible trees. I've been away, so sorry if I missed an earlier thread: did you make them yourself or buy them? Because I'd love to have trees like that.
I bought a schwack of trees in plastic baggies at a German flea market. They were used, not very prototypical, and have odd colors of paint on them. I cleaned them up, hacked and slashed to make the trees less uniform, sprayed with ultra-flat green paint, and sprinkled with ground foam. The trees are from various manufacturers, but some were a toylike brand, Busch, and Heki. Some were unknown. Thanks for the kudos. The newer ones are Busch, new from the bag, and treated similarly.
Looks pretty good from here! I was up on Marias today and saw plenty of scenes with trees which looked similar. Maybe you just need a few which have been deformed under tons of snow, beetle killed, etc? Boxcab E50
Jason, I emailed the guy, but he didn't know what color mix that was called. I think he quoted $9 AUS/kg. I cannot fathom needing more than a sinlge bag to do this whole layout. If it looks as good at the phot you posted as a smple, then I should get enough stockpiled to do my dream retirement layout..... Ken & Chaya, thanks for the kind words. As far as dead trees, I have Woodland Scenics trunks that could fit the bill, and taking a scraggly tree, after paint/foaming it, repainting in a dark brown would show a dead tree, methinks.
Hemi, Steve has kindly done the leg work for us,have seen Steve's track work in the flesh,awsome doesn't even come close!Speaking of which,when you going to post some "update" pic's for everyone to drool over Steve? Jere, go with what Steve has posted,you cant go wrong!
I went to town today to get some thin plywood for making tunnel portals. I ended up getting 1/8" MDF. I drilled a 1 1/4" hole, and cut stright along the side to create the portal. Only Tunnel 18 will need the perfectly straight one. The rest are hacked out of bare rock. Not sure how I will make that work, and still have the tunnel top being removable for access. Still some work yet to do with the portals before they can be test fit.
Rock molds set at Tunnel 18 west portal, sculptamolded-in, and painted. I set a bunch more above Tunnel 26, and will (when time allows) blend them with Hydrocal to make the look like continuous rock.
Some paint, and here's the current look. I think I need to tone it down a bit. Still a lot of work to do to camoflauge the removable tunnel top gaps. Compare...
After a few more different earth tones and some greenery, I think you have it nailed. You have done a fantastic job in such a small space.
I am by far no expert but with some oil paints,different sized rock & gravel,some Koch grass this will come up a winner Hemi.Oh & some ballast lol......
I have some static grass, but no applicator. I need to work on camo-ing the seam gaps, and I still need to figure out how I'll make the removable tunnel work with the portal. I'll also need a concrete liner for a portion of it. More work yet to do, but it's coming along.
You may already have considered these points, but...for what they're worth... Are the portal and seam only viewable from one angle (the front, as in your picture) , or will the seam need to be invisible from the side as well...as if looking across the tracks instead of along them? (That is, the viewer will be looking along the seam instead of across it.) If viewable only from the front along the track centerline, make most of the tunnel cover seam edge slightly lower than the scenery seam edge around the portal. Then you could hide the seam gap behind the bare rock of the portal foam (where it's higher than the bare rock of the tunnel cover foam behind it), or use scattered bushes and scrub trees on the portal foam to hide where the tunnel cover's seam edge is higher than the portal foam's seam edge. If viewers will be looking at the portal from an aisle on the left or right, could dense trees at the top of the left and right banks/bluffs prevent viewer's seeing the portal (and seam just behind it) if they are at a right angle from the portal, but allow viewers on the left to see the portal but not the seam if they shift farther to their right, so their viewing angle into the tunnel/portal is from a 45 degree angle or less...and is closer to the front view in your picture than a side view? Viewers in an aisle on the right would need to shift more to their left to see the portal. If you strategically place tall dense trees very close to the edge of the layout, you could prevent viewers in the aisle from looking along the seam as it goes straight into the layout. When the viewer shifts a little to the right or the left to see between the trees, they would only be able to see another dense tree positioned to hide the seam; and, when they tried yet another angle, there would be still other trees or low bushes in the way. If you are careful to paint and scenic the top 1/2 inch or so of the side edges of the foam of both the tunnel cover and portal foam, then, even if someone could actually see a portion of the seam through the trees and bushes, it would be painted to look like stone or have some ground cover on it, so the viewer would think they were looking at a crack in the rock rather than a seam in the scenery. How high is the benchwork? If a typical viewer's eye level is between 64 and 68 inches, and low benchwork gives them a clear helicoptor view/bird's eye perspective of the portal and seam, you may want to find a way of preventing them from standing close to the layout next to the portal... perhaps by putting a small working surface or table in the aisle that keeps them from positioning themselves close enough to the side of the portal to achieve that helicoptor view).
Progress! Last night, I installed a bunch of rock castings between Tunnels 25 and 26, securing them with wood glue. Today, I spent almost 4 hours applying Sculptamold beteen all the castings, blending them into the mountain. Pics at 11!!!
