I just love your roads, looks real. What do you use for the white and yellow stripes? Again, looking great. Wish I was closer to your show as I would like to see those modules in person. Keep up the great work. later, Craig
Craig, I've been using WS road striping pens but have been having luck with Sharpie oil base paint pens also... I had a chance to ballast the tracks on the 3 additional singles/corner...at least there will be some semblance of scenery on these before the 25th... I also started to 'grass' some areas on the grain elevator triple....
This building reminds me so much of the 1950's. This morning I cannot think of a manufacturer. Can you tell me...?
Walthers Cornerstone "State Line Supply".... added the first bit of gravel on the center 3' grain elevator module....
This type of scene is worthy of being up front, tracks in the rear. Have you ever considered a couple of transition modules, to allow such a view?
Started my first module using our newest building kit. Track and building just sitting there now as I work on the layout rich
Because I have only two weeks before the next show, AND because I want to make some of these modules halfway presentable, I used yesterday as a 'skyboard painting' day...I had already roller brushed my mix of sky blue on the plywood skyboards. I used an existing skyboard to mark where I wanted the horizon the start...I had previously used my Sweetie's craft acrylics to paint these (Evergreen green)...so that was the first order of business-to paint the distant horizon across all of the 9' of modules... then I broke out the airbrush and mixed a 50/50 mix of acrylic white to thinner....I didn't even bother with the dual action internal mix airbrush, and just used my cheap Paasche single action external mix ($25.00 at Hobby Lobby) and airbrushed clouds...I did my best to represent distant clouds by making them small, closer to the horizon, getting larger and further 'up' on the skyboard, to represent closer clouds... I stippled the green acrylic craft paint to represent different foliage...effective for background scenery...here are pics of the skyboards reattached (they're easily attached and removed with T-nuts)...showing the effect. We love using skyboards as they help set and focus the scene when properly done.
The sky looks amazing. Wish I had the ability to copy what you have done. Again, best looking sky I have seen in a long time. Keep up the great work. Looking forward to your next project.
Craig- You'd be surprised how easy it is to rough-in such a background, simply using rattle cans. It takes a couple of days to lose the odor, and then you can start on finer details manually, air brush, etc.
I made one mistake with all my modules, the sky boards are the back of the module, cannot be removed. The only way to remove them would be to cut them off and then add new sky boards attached with t-nuts and short bolts. I have a table saw and could remove the guard and cut the boards off, a new project? Would add 1/4" to the depth of the modules, would only really mess up the ones with water. I am thinking about it. later, Craig
It may be worth your while to do just that; sure has made it easy for me to paint each skyboard at the desk. It is easier than one might think; I just used three different shades of green acrylic craft paints...the sky color is flat interior latex paint mixed at Home depot Bruce
a 'hurry up and get something on these new modules before the show' burst of activity... first, a painting of all the fascia that hasn't been painted.... then, some tree work (something I haven't really tried before). Denise scored about 10 packages of the old-style WS metal tree kits, all for $7.00 total, so I bent and painted a number of the armatures in anticipation of adding the old-school foilage 'nets' that are included in these older tree kits...I tried a Krylon textured gray paint to replicate a bark texture...spraying the armatures in very short 'bursts' from 2' away produced a very satisfactory effect... I painted over a few with a darker gray.... Then I finished the trees with the foilage netting by applying tacky glue to the limbs, stretching the foilage over the branches until I achieved the look I wanted, then sprayed the entire tree with hair spray, and sprinkled 'highlight' leaf material over the top of the branches of the tree.... more to follow....
Then...as it was beautifully sunny and significantly cooler this last weekend...I gathered material and added various 'grasses' and gravel to the remaining modules, specifically, those flanking the Hutton Grain Elevator triple... I also took the opportunity to assemble all 17' of extant "Mother Road" modules (apart from the corner piece which won't necessarily be used in every setup), on 3 6' tables in the driveway...it was 17' long so parts were in shade and parts were in sun...
I created a little collage contrasting and comparing the last pic to the phot that originally inspired the Grain elevator modules...
and finally... had to assemble two more triples to balance one leg of the setup for next Saturday... no time to add any semblance of scenery, but I will paint the fascia... This will be two triples that feature "Arbo Canyon"...
