DM&IR Hill City Sub: Landscaping & scenery

Tracy McKibben Apr 3, 2011

  1. Tracy McKibben

    Tracy McKibben TrainBoard Member

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    I had the same concern at first, but it's really not as "brown" as it appears in the pictures. For comparison, here's a picture of real trees that I took last week, looking directly into the forest, under full sunlight:
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    From the layout:
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    Once I get the daylight bulbs installed, I'll bet you won't see a difference... :tb-tongue:
     
  2. mikelhh

    mikelhh TrainBoard Member

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    The grey sky and landscape visible through the trees are both very effective. I've seen many shots on nerail archive, for example, that have just that look.

    The twigs look identical to the ones I've used on my layout, available here as brush-fence garden screens. I usually give them a slap of grey paint without making it my life's work. Mine get brittle over time. I also crush them for ground cover.

    Your layout is coming on a treat. Keep those updates coming!

    Mike
     
  3. Tracy McKibben

    Tracy McKibben TrainBoard Member

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    I did not know about NERAIL, what a goldmine of photos! Thanks for pointing it out...
     
  4. Tracy McKibben

    Tracy McKibben TrainBoard Member

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    Hey Neighbor, Can I Have That Weed?

    Imagine it - it's a nice, warm Easter Sunday, the first warm day in weeks, and you're outside working in your garden. Your next-door neighbor strolls over and asks "Can I have any large weeds that you find?". You chuckle, politely, and say "Sure, no problem", while thinking to yourself "woo woo woo is this guy on?".

    Actually, my neighbor was a very good sport about it, and agreed to give me any weeds she pulls that have interesting roots on them. I invited her and her husband in to see the layout, showed them some of my "root trees", and they were genuinely impressed. In fact, she brought over some really neat clippings from some plant, asking if I could use them. I have no idea what the plant is, but when I saw the clippings, I thought "there's a pine tree hidden in there":

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    I clipped off the little seed pods and trimmed it up a bit, then wrapped a very thin layer of fiber-fill around it. A quick shot of gray and brown spray paint, a sprinkle of ground foam, and I have this:

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    It's not quite the pine tree that I had imagined, but it's a neat tree nonetheless. Since I'm modeling late fall/early winter, I won't use it, not on this layout, but it's an interesting tree armature. I may try another one, trimming the armature down even further. One last photo, showing one of the original clippings side-by-side with the tree:

    [​IMG]
     
  5. Tracy McKibben

    Tracy McKibben TrainBoard Member

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    It's Like Looking Into A Mirror

    Yes, I know it's been done forever, but it remains one of the coolest visual tricks I've ever seen on a model railroad. That would be the use of mirrors to make a set of tracks disappear into the backdrop. I decided to try it myself.

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    It's not perfect, but not awful either. A little more work on hiding the edges of the mirror, and the visual gap in the rails, and I think it will look just fine. It's certainly convincing with a car parked in front of it!

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  6. Flash Blackman

    Flash Blackman TrainBoard Member

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    Looks good. I have a simple one, too. It is pretty easy to do but I admit that some are more effective than others. I think yours looks fine just like it is.
     
  7. Petey

    Petey TrainBoard Member

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    Tracy,
    The whole scene is excellently done. Very good mirror effect.:thumbs_up:
     
  8. Tracy McKibben

    Tracy McKibben TrainBoard Member

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    Thanks Pete!
     
  9. Tracy McKibben

    Tracy McKibben TrainBoard Member

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    Mirror, Mirror In The Woods

    I spent a few minutes this evening trying to camouflage the edges of the mirror a little better. I'm happy with the results.

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    Once the layout is finished, it will be impossible to get this close to the mirror, so nobody will ever see this exact view. The mirror tilted slightly, giving the appearance that the tracks go uphill. At first this bugged me, but upon further consideration, I kind of like it.

    The tracks appear to go up and around the hill where the Lakeside Inn will sit.

    [​IMG]
     
  10. Tracy McKibben

    Tracy McKibben TrainBoard Member

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    It's A Swamp Thing

    An essential part of the Minnesota landscape is the blanket of cattails that can be found in nearly every wetlands area. In late fall, these turn light brown.

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    Since I'm modeling late fall/early winter, in Minnesota, and I have some low-lying areas to fill, I need some of these brown cattails. I've seen fake fur used to simulate tall grasses before, and I'm thinking it might work for cattails as well. I haven't been able to find any tan fur, so I bought some white fur and painted it. Not bad, but I think I need to darken it up a bit.

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  11. mikelhh

    mikelhh TrainBoard Member

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    I'm liking your inventiveness! I see Model Railroader magazine like it as well, because a photo of yours features in their current newsletter - nice! :thumbs_up::thumbs_up:

    I like the view up and around the hill too.

    [​IMG]

    It's all looking better and better.
     
  12. Tracy McKibben

    Tracy McKibben TrainBoard Member

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    Holy crap! I hadn't looked at the newsletter yet. Holy crap! It's nothing big, and my name's not on it, but - holy crap! That just made my day...
     
  13. Jim Wiggin

    Jim Wiggin Staff Member TrainBoard Supporter

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    Wow, awesome work! I've wondered about using soil from my home state on NH on my layout versus ground foam, well you have made up my mind! The tree line is very nice too. Good job!:thumbs_up:
     
  14. Flash Blackman

    Flash Blackman TrainBoard Member

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    I really do like this. I have about 10 percent of my layout left to add scenery and I am getting inspired! :thumbs_up: I'm tired of painting engines for a while, anyway.
     
  15. Tracy McKibben

    Tracy McKibben TrainBoard Member

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    I'm Dreaming...

    ...of brown railroad, just like the proto-typical ones. Ahem... Yeah, sorry about that. The falling snow outside is messing with my head. We're finally getting some snow here in Minnesota, and I guess I'm a little giddy.

    I've been trying to make up my mind as to what to do next on the layout. There is landscaping to do, more cars to build, more vehicles to build, and more structures to build. I have several long weekends coming up, including a couple of 5-day breaks, so there's plenty of time, but I haven't decided what the priorities are. Taking a step back and looking things over, I decided landscaping should be next on the list. It seems like the logical next step - until it's finished I can't finish ballasting & weathering the track, I can't place structures on the layout, and the overall look of the layout is suffering without landscaping.

    With that decision made, I proceeded to create my own brown snowstorm. If you've read my earlier posts on how I do my landscaping, you know that I use real, natural materials, including real dirt. I have a container full of dirt that has been baked in the oven and sifted to a fine powder. After slathering a layer of diluted white matte medium over the target area, I sprinkled a layer of this sifted dirt onto the matte medium. I followed this with a misting spray of "wet water" (50/50 mix of water and rubbing alcohol), thoroughly saturating the dirt. This helps the matte medium spread throughout the dirt. A second final layer of dirt was then sprinkle on top of the saturated material. Tomorrow, after this has had some time to set, I'll cover selected areas with the ground-up leaf mixture that I use.

    Note to others who are planning shelf layouts - contemporary advice is to limit the shelf depth to 24 inches. I ignored this advice, and today came to regret it. Three hours hunched over trying to reach the back of a 3-foot deep shelf is too much, my back is killing me!

    Enough rambling, let's get to the photos...

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  16. GP30

    GP30 TrainBoard Member

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    In regards to your trees from the grapevine broom, are you just pushing the "trees" into your foam board or are they glued into place?
     
  17. Tracy McKibben

    Tracy McKibben TrainBoard Member

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    They're just pushed into the foam, no glue. As I work towards the front of the shelf and start using more detailed foreground trees, I may glue those into place. I'll figure that out when I get there.
     
  18. Tracy McKibben

    Tracy McKibben TrainBoard Member

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    A Trip To The Woodshed

    One of the structures that I'll be building at some point is the Lakeside Inn, what I imagine was considered a classy joint for Hill City in 1920. With all those rooms, the inn would be a tough place to keep warm in the winter, and would most likely consume a large amount of firewood. The proprietor of such a classy place isn't going to want piles and piles of firewood cluttering up the property, spoiling the view for his guests, so he's going to store his firewood somewhere out of sight. Someplace like this simple woodshed, located at the base of the hill on which the inn resides, safely hidden from the guests by the tree-covered hillside.

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    If you've been following my progress, you've seen the shed before, it's nothing new. What is new is the landscaping on the hill. Over the past couple of nights I finished applying the dirt layer. Tonight I put down the layer of dead leaves and planted some trees on and around the hillside. Here you can see the woodshed, the dirt road leading up to the inn, and the cardboard mockup of the inn itself. The mockup is a bit larger than the actual structure will be.

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    Here's another look from the far end of the layout. The unfinished section directly in front of the woodshed is where Johnson's Produce will sit. At the far left of the photo, you can see the cardboard placeholders for what will become Lake Avenue, a small storefront area that existed in Hill City.

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    By the end of the weekend, I hope to have all of the trees planted on that far end of the layout, and on the small hill that is partially hiding the handcar shed.
     
  19. Tracy McKibben

    Tracy McKibben TrainBoard Member

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    Claustrophobic?

    I hope not, because the forest is closing in. The treeline along the entire far end of the layout has been planted, as well as the area behind the handcar shed. Sticking all of these trees into the foam base is slow work, but it's nice to step back and see just how much progress has been made.

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    The second mirror is roughed-in, I need to do a little more work on hiding the edges.

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    A couple of shots looking across what I guess would be the west end of Hill City. Johnson's Produce, the handcar shed, the woodshed, and the mockup of the Lakeside Inn are all visible.

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    Tomorrow - more planting, and maybe some ballasting for a change of pace.
     
  20. Tracy McKibben

    Tracy McKibben TrainBoard Member

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    Yes Deer

    A lot of guys have spent a lot of time over the past few weeks wandering around the woods looking for deer. I don't have to go any further than my basement, three of them have taken up residence in my forest.

    [​IMG]

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    I made a hobby shop run today to look for the December issue of Railroad Model Craftsman (the one with my article), and since I was there, picked up some figures, including these deer.


    On Wednesday, I promised that by the end of this long weekend, the layout would look a lot different. I have one more day off, but errands to run, so there won't be much modeling done on that last day. That said, I did make significant progress over the weekend. The layout looks different, there's a lot less unfinished styrofoam to look at.


    This spot will be the future home of a water tower:
    [​IMG]

    The sawmill and the Woodenware Factory will sit here. That unfinished oval section will be the hot water pond used to store logs:
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    All in all, a productive and RELAXING weekend. I hope to accomplish just as much over my remaining long weekends before the end of the year.
     

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