Incredible as always Caleb. I know its after the fact, but have you considered making furrows for your potatoes?
Thanks Chris. No furrows for this field. Furrows are created by machinery and the farm I am modeling is a small organic produce operation. Having been raised on a similar tiny organic farm I can say that most of the planting is done by hand without any mass planting devise. Heres a new shot. I am messing around with the farmhouse and trying to decide where to put it. Here is the location I like the most so far, right by the Potatoes! Hmmm... I still need to paint that chimney...
Caleb you never cease to amaze me. I wish I had half as much talent as you! Keep up the great work! Cheers! Adam
Ah, fair enough. It is more the size of a garden almost anyway. The house does really sell the scene.
Caleb, once again you did a great job with that family farm. Could you please tell me what kind of material was used for the dirt road ? real sifted dirt , very fine grade ballast ? Jacques
Its clay, dried and sifted. The clay is wet and clumpy when it comes out of the ground, so I let it bake in the sun for a while until its completely dry. I then crumble the clay into powder and sift out any pebbles and other bits. Indeed!
looking very nice. really nice work on the trees and the crops. Thanks for the updates and keep up the really awesome work that you are doing.
Thank you Caleb for taking some of your valuable time to explain the dirt road technique. One more question: when building the dirt road, do you spread white glue on the baseboard ( with a paintbrush for example ) and sift the dried clay on top of it ? Jacques
That method certainly works, but for this dirt road I tried something different. I sprinkled the dirt onto the dry baseboard, spread and shaped it until it was the shape I liked. Then I carefully wet the road with 70% rubbing alcohol and then with diluted white glue. Once the road was dry, I rubbed it with a tough eraser. This scuffed up the top grains of the dirt making the top of the road look "dusty". Here a better shot of the dirt road.
Caleb Austin...the "Doogie Howser" of model railroading !!! :tb-cool: A teenaged genius I tell ya !!! :tb-cool: .
Thanks Caleb for explaining your dirtroad technique. It looks very similar to the ballasting technique. I'll have to wait until all the snow has melted here in Montreal to collect some clay. Jacques
Haha, thanks George. Today I worked on a new type of tree. On the hill above the farmhouse there will be a orchard. I decided to use poly fiber to model these smaller trees, but what to mount the fiber on? I tried attaching the poly fiber on bare WS plastic tree armatures, but there was not enough branch detail. I then tried attaching it to armatures with super tree bits glued to the armature, but the super tree bits were too weak. So then I found a middle ground! Instead of SuperTree pieces I glued Nandiena plant twigs to the armature. This had enough branch detail and was also quite strong. Overall I like this method and will use it for the next orchard trees, though next time I think I'll spread the the Poly Fiber a bit thinner on the branches.
I wouldn't change a thing on that tree Caleb, it looks like an exceptionally healthy apple tree. I'm not too familiar with the plant you used, is it a type of wild grape or something?
Caleb, That is a very nice looking tree. I just started making some with the WS tree armatures and poly fiber and they came out similar looking. But I did not glue any extra branches to them. I add the poly fiber by stretching it and then covering the tree armature like a hair net would on a womens head and then cover with a mixture of fine and coarse turf. By keeping the poly fiber thin, I can see some branch detail in a few places. How are you attaching the poly fiber on yours? Craig
Sorry for getting back to you guys sooner, busy days. Its type of berry bush(non edible!) that is very common in gardens and such. The part used for trees is the armature that the berry's grow on. Nandina - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Thanks Craig. I attach the fiber in a similar way, though I add it piece by piece. I take thin clumps of the fiber and add it to the tree one branch at a time.
