Model Railroading > Just working on the layout

A fellow club member and I have been making a mess the past few days on an isolated area of the California Southern MRRC's layout in Norwalk, CA. The entire area was airbrushed with Testors RR Tie Brown a while back to paint all the trackage and eliminate that bare wooden look of the scene. A bright boy was used to clean and polish off the head of the rails. On Monday, we installed a 24" backdrop (1/4" masonite) to cover the lower portion of a large picture window behind the layout, then painted the masonite sky blue. Several hills intended to go behind the tracks were constructed out of layered 2" insulation foam sheets, stuck together with 'liquid nails' adhesive, then cut and roughly shaped with a hot wire. (I'm sure at some point the sky will continue around to the right. The corner was just a convenient stopping point for the day.)

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On Tuesday, the foam hills were lifted out of place to get their initial layer of plaster cloth set over the surface. The numerous structures were also removed so we could mask off all the trackage and roadways to paint on a tan colored layer of "dirt". With those foam hills and buildings out of the way, rolling hillsides were then painted onto the backdrop with several light and dark greenish shades of latex paints. I'm not a Rembrandt, those soft hills are there just to eliminate a rough edge of blue sky to dark layout deck. After the tan (earthy toned) paint was dry, we sprinkled on several base colors of fine ground foam. Elmer's white glue roughly brushed on first, then ground foam colors, with an alcohol/H2O wash misted over the top to set the ground cover in place. Ground foam is still 'wet' in the pictures, the colors should lighten with time.

The next step will be to go back and start dumping medium and fine ballast along all the trackage. Then decide what other details to add, bushes, bare dirt, junk, spillage from that large cement factory throughout the scene. Trust me, there is much work to be done here! It is always fun and educational. I keep reminding myself that its all about layering... Inspiration, lumber construction, scene design and building placement, track installation and electrical wiring, affixing roads and building foundations, painting on dirt, adding ground foam, bushes, trees, and other vertical details, etc. The list goes on and on...

~ Mr. MRL

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In hindsight, I guess I coulda removed the fire extinguisher before I took the photos...

Mr. MRL

I also noted the red colored alien spacecraft hovering the area. I am thinking it is crewed by coneheads trying to blend in. They picked up a photo of a fire extinguisher from some intercepted tv advertising. Finding it featured in advertising with no true perspective the thought if they built spacecraft to match the design and color this would blend in unobtrusively with similar items seen on earth.

Baldar? is not quite sure why he is attracting such attention despite the camouflage.

Well, that's my story and I am sticking to it.

Posted from Windows Phone OS 7

Looking good so far

Photoshop is your Friend. It works out pretty good for moving windows and ceilings as well, but a lot more work using layers and such.
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> In hindsight, I guess I coulda removed the fire
> extinguisher before I took the photos...
>
> Mr. MRL

Looks pretty good, well thought out. The big roller thingy for the cement plant is a pretty cool set-up, they also use them in some paper mills. Seems like the more interesting kits like that become pretty rare pretty fast.

NIce work ! Thanks for sharing with us and giving us such a nice description of whats taking place!  -Justin