Model Railroading > "What was I thinking?"

This falls squarely in the "what was I thinking?" category. While spelunking and inventorying some scenic texture material storage tubs I came across this bag of shockingly yellow static grass by Vista Scenic Hobby Products. It's an old bag, probably in excess of 20 years or more, and for the life of me I can't imagine why I would have purchased something that looks like this. It's my handwriting on the bag so I know it was me, but, why? We aren't modeling anything like fall colors, even my earlier club involvements didn't get this bad for color use and this is unlike any fall colors I've seen in nature anyway, but if we need to decorate the inside of a pumpkin or acorn squash we're set. Very odd.

Jeff johnston
trainvideosandparts.com

---

A golden California meadow perhaps?

TJY

... Perhaps. But I've never seen a fluorescent yellow grass field in California or anywhere else.

We aren't modeling acres of blooming spring poppies, either.

Jeff

Aspen fall foliage perhaps.(background trees)
DK



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/14/20 15:56 by DKay.

You can see a field that color but it requires smoking the right stuff...

Bill Deaver
Tehachapi, CA

Knowing what we're going through here with the Scotch Broom driving us crazy, feel lucky to only have a small bag of it!



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/14/20 17:36 by patd3985.

Sprinkled lighly over a field of grass could represent dandelions.

Bob Krieger
Cheyenne, WY

This stuff is sort of kinda more or less close to the color for dandelions, but this is ststic grass material which means tiny, short fibers. You wouldn't get the individual flower effect that you would with extra-fine ground foam of the right color, and it would take small bunches of the stuff to be visible given the size of the individual strands. 

This bag is definitely headed for the swap meet material box.

Jeff

There are very few uniform colors in nature, they almost always are a blend.
My experience with yellow static grass is that it is really almost transparent when applied, you are seeing it as hundreds of fibres packed together in the bag.
I tried to use a pale yellow to tone down some too-bright green ground cover and it simply did not have enough color density to hide the ground cover underneath.
I suggest a small pinch of this added to another color of grass would be an interesting variation.
The bright yellow could be flowers like dandilions or bits of dry grass from the prior season.
An artistic touch would be to apply this blend to only a few swaths in a field, as weeds and flowers seem to grow in clusters.
Maybe drop a pinch into the basket just before finishing up an area.
Have fun!

As a person with some painting and art in my background I've always applied the principles of nature not liking solid colors, and with blending bits and pieces of colors here and there, and so on. I also use photos from my prototype location and many visits there as guidelines for what I want to model.

To get back to my original post, I also use the right tool for the job, and I would use small bits of ground foam as flower accents if I needed those. I can't remember why I sould have purchased something this gaudy in color when, as suggested, you need to use these bright colors in bunches to be able to see them. Tiny bits of ground foam represent individual flowers or small bunches of flowers, and the static grass would call for a different approach and the material would look like brightly colored stems rather than flower heads. But flowers are relatively unimportant for what we're doing, especially given the late summer September timeframe for the layout. 

I'm sure someone, via a swap meet or Ebay, will find the color just right for some application.

Jeff

Accent color, use sparingly. :)

Eng.Shadetree