We finally got some good progress today. Finished up most of the lower hill area. Just a few places that needs some TLC to smooth the paper mache down and it will be ready for painting and then scenery. I have to go back to work tomorrow, so progress will slow down alot now ( I have been on leave for 3 weeks, so thats why its been coming along so fast.). Hopefully progress will remain steady and we can get the mountain done rather quickly. Thats all that is left to do for large scene status and then its onto the smaller details like the tunnel portals, trees, the lake and river, and some small buildings to add life to the layout. Here are a few pics so let us know what you guys think Here is a good look at the lower hill and the "rock" formations that we were able to create with the plastic bags and paper mache. Here are the views of the completed lower hill with tunnels and all. So, what do you guys think so far ? My kids are loving it, thats a huge plus.
Well, sadly we have not been able to get anything accomplished this entire week on the layout. My job has taken so much of my time, that by the time I get home its dinner and getting the kids off to bed. I have been working on a timber tunnel portal this week in some of my spare time, hopefully I can get it completed today. I have a three day weekend so hopefully we can get some more done on the layout and get some pics up.
Well I have had a pretty slow day today, and was able to get 3 of the tunnel portals completed. Just one more to go. The boys didnt want to work on the layout today, they wanted to play outside, which I am very fine with. Here are a few pictures of the portals both on and off the layout.
Love those portals! Were they scratch-built? Keep up on this layout! How are your children enjoying it? Alex
We looked around google images for tunnel portals and this is what my 3 year old wanted. I printed the picture out and put it on cardboard. Then I had to make the portal completely from scratch. Went from a 2d picture to a 3d portal. It took 3 pictures per portal. I have to build one more today ill "try" to remember to take some before during and after pictures for you guys. My 3 year old loves it, but my 6 year old has grown old of the layout. He is never interested in anything for very long.
We got the tunnel portals installed onto the layout. Other than that there has been no big progress made on the layout. We started working on the mountain today and the weekend is coming up so we should be done with laying all the base structure of scenery. I have been trying to figure a simple cheap solution to making water does anyone have any ideas. The mountain has come along quite fast so im hoping we get it finished fast. Ok so help is needed in the following areas. Simple cheap solution to making water. Simple way to build trees and bushes and such. I will get some pictures up tomorrow so hopefullyyouguys enjoy them and have enjoye the build so far.
If you don't want to use the Woodland Scenics stuff, I've heard that blue or clear hair gel actually makes relatively okay water, although it can be a bit bubbly. Trees and bushes... your better off just using woodland scenics or something similar. If you're looking for pine trees, there are a few ways involving spinning wire with a drill and adding some sort of fiber material which you then spray with hairspray and flock. Unfortunately, it's a bit time consuming. Could be fun for the youngsters to spray the trees, though. The trees are usually used for smaller scales such as N or Z, so I don't know how they'll appear with that layout. The easiest way to go is usually prebought trees.
Woo hoo. We are finally done laying the base work for the scenery. Here are the pictures that i have been promising for so long now. I hope that you guys like them, and let us know what you think. We are going to start painting and getting scenery built up. This is the lower level between the two portals and you can see the "mountain" in the distance. Here is the track as it wraps around the mountain and into the tunnel portal.
Here are some more pictures. The kids are so happy and proud of what we have done, its awesome. My 3 year old, Kayleb, loves it.
And some more pictures showing the layout as a whole. So what do you guys think so far. We are going to start getting it painted and laying some scenery today and hopefully we can get it all done pretty fast.
Great progress lately. It's wonderful to see such work with little children involved. I wait for the next installment.
Well Shortround you didnt have to wait too long. We were hard at work since the last posting getting some scenery laid down. Here are the pics so far. We got the river and lake laid down, only thing left to do is to get the upper hill covered with scenery so we can finish laying the river and lake banks along the upper hill side of the water sections. You can see the bridge that will cross the river in these pictures. I am working on building a bridge to give the track over the river some more detail and make it look more like a real bridge over a river. I wish we could upload more than 5 pictures per post. Below is some more pictures showing the lake and river.
Here you can see the river and lake. So guys, what do you all think ? That is it for today. Tomorrow will be yet another busy day on the layout hopefully. I know that this Thursday will be a pretty productive day because I have a 24 duty watching the barracks. All I will be doing is sitting behind a desk making sure these Marines dont do anything stupid, so itll be lots of time to work on the buildings and structures that my sons want on the layout.
Woo hoo. We have accomplished alot on the layout lately. I got the bridge completed while on duty and made a few little buildings as well. I have one more building to make, its going to be a factory. Then we will be done with buildings, and once all the ground cover is complete we will be done. They said they dont want any trees or anything so maybe in the future we will make some trees and bushes and what not to give the layout some more depth. Well, we also went to the swap meet this weekend and found a ton of Thomas stuff. We were able to get two more engines and 75-100 more pieces of track including a couple of buildings and bridges, so soon enough we will start working on another layout that we can connect to this layout. They want to build a roundhouse and turntable on the next layout, so what I am thinking and have tried to convince them to do is to make a "modular" roundhouse and yard for their next layout.
Completed "For Now" Thomas the Train Layout Well guys, here is the final product. The kids are too excited to play with it, so they said "literally" that they are done and we can put trees and stuff on it later. I am currently making a custom engine and getting some details put onto their passenger trains to make a grand opening video but thats a month or so away from being completed. SO here are the pictures and let us know what you guys think. A few pictures of the mountain. The close up where the track goes into the tunnel and then a back shot showing the tunnel portal behind the station/factory area and the track wrapping around the mountain. A few shots of the station/factory area. The yellow/orange building will be replaced by a scratchbuilt factory that we are still working on, so once that is done I will get another few shots up showing that. Oh, forgot to add. The kids decided to "break" the bridge that was built, so we are in the process of repairing it to put it back on the layout. Another note. Went to a yard sale Saturday, and found another huge lot of Thomas parts. We got 5 more motorized engines, and tons more track. So once I am done building my daughters dollhouse and getting a start on my layout, we will be building another extension onto this layout. It will most likely be a roundhouse scene, my boys love the turntable. This way they can store their engines and wont have them laying around where my 1 year old can break them.
