FORUM CLINIC: Building realistic scenery


I also use forced perspective as the road recedes into the distance, dropping the road width by perhaps 20-30%.
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OK! that makes a lot of sense if it's going into the backdrop. Do you also reduce the size of objects, or leave objects of recognizable size out of that area of forced perspective and stay with terrain objects that have no reference for size?
Thank's for the clinic Joe , I see more of your work when visiting your site. I'm thankfull I didn't get too far with my scenery, because now I believe I can do a much better job of it.

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Willis
 
jfugate said:
Rex:

Try painting the tape with some latex paint first, like a dirt brown color. This not only will make the taped scenery look nice very quickly (you can use this as a "quickie" technique when you are in a hurry), it will give the tape some tooth and make the plaster mix stay put better. Also add a few drops of dish detergent to your mix, which will break the surface tenshion of the plaster and make it penetrate better instead of just bead up on the tape.

I only do this if the scenery is more vertical in nature, since it helps the plaster stay put ... on flatter areas, I don't do anything special. Also with more vertical surfaces, I often mix the plaster pretty thin and put on a base coat first, almost like painting it on. Then the second less runny coat really has lots of "tooth" to hold it in place.
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Thanks loads, Joe. I tried the latex paint first and it did give the plaster mix enough adhesion to stick in place. Your masking tape method will sure save me a bunch of money$$$. :)
 
Bonus post: Spraying and gluing tips

I mention spraying water in some of this clinic ... so here's what I do to any spraying of water during scenery work. I get a plant mister spray bottle in the Walmart garden supply area. Something like this (although this one is from an office supply store online):

ce04_121536_oe.jpg

http://www.discountofficesupplies.com/ce/shop/ui

Get the kind with the trigger pump and an adjustable spray tip. Works great for generating a fine water mist once you have it adjusted right.

I also mention using glue in this clinic. It's important to note, I never spray the stuff. I mix a thin 3:1 white glue mixture in an old Elmer's glue bottle, and I dribble it on after wetting an area with 70% rubbing alcohol when doing track ballasting -- or for general scenery work, I prewet and area with wet water (water with a few drops of dish soap in it to break the surface tension).

But I don't use white glue very much -- haven't found much of a need outside of ballasting or the occasional loose rock/talus slope. The plaster dirt sets up hard on it's own, and for most other things, like bushes, trees, and grass, I glue all that in place with hot glue.

I have also done sweatshirt grass, and used contact cement for that ... but oh boy, contact cement has strong fumes, so I'll let the layout room air out several hours after using it ... which isn't often.

But my glue mainstay for scenery work is hot glue. It goes on fast and sets up fast ... it cools completely within a minute or two. But be careful, hot glue is *very hot* and can cause nasty burns if you get it on you. When hot gluing, I put a dishwashing rubber glove on my right hand and use that hand to hold with while I'm gluing things with the hot glue.
 
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CBCNSfan said:
Hi Stefan, those are teriffic looking trees, I for one would like to see a "How To" thread with your procedure for making them.
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Willis
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Hi Willis,
thank you for your compliment. I`ll try to explain how I made my trees. Please are indulgent with me. My native language is German and I speaks only a little English :confused: :(
I made the trunks from peg wood (dowels ??). For simulating the bark I scratched a saw blade from above downwards. Then you have to drill a lot of small holes into the trunk for the branches which are made with binding wire for flowers. After this I painted the trunk with Polly Scale Reefer Gray and gave the dried paint a wash of alcohol with a few drops of ink india.
Now comes the funny part. Siflor sells mats with material for fir trees. I cut pieces from this mats and clued they on the branches, starting from below and working up . When I`m finished, I cut this pieces into proper shapes with a very fine scissor. See illustration. Thats it. Now I can add more details like dead branches and so on.

Stefan

My Gallery

anl_kiefer.jpg
 
My native language is German and I speaks only a little English
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Hi Stefan, und danke for an excellent post. Your English is much better than some of the English I try to read on the internet :D
I'm very surprised at the simplicity of constructing those trees, however in viewing the finished product, it is the artistry of the model builder that makes the model real looking. Again very nice modeling, excellent trees.

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Willis
 
Bonus post: What Woodland Scenics products I use for vegetation

I've been asked what Woodland Scenics materials I use in my scenery vegetation. I use mainly their Foliage material, here's the precise numbers:

F51 - Foliage - Light Green (60 sq. in. bag)
F52 - Foliage - Medium Green (60 sq. in. bag)
F53 - Foliage - Dark Green (60 sq. in. bag)

I make heavy use of this foliage material, especially F51 and F52. I use the light green the most, followed closely by medium green. Then dark green usage follows as a distant third.

I also have some:
F54 - Foliage - Conifer Green (60 sq. in. bag)
F55 - Foliage - Early Fall Mix (60 sq. in. bag)
F56 - Foliage - Late Fall Mix (60 sq. in. bag)

... but I don't use it much since I model July/August on the layout ... maybe something here and there once in a blue moon. And I use other materials for conifers, so there's not much call to use the conifer foliage material.
 
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Bonus post: How lighting affects your scenery colors

Lighting is very important to how your scenery colors look. One good tip is that whatever lighting you use for your layout, you should also use at your workbench. You avoid nasty color shift surprises that way.

Colors can shift dramatically between outdoors, and indoor florescent lights, and indoor tungsten lights. Florescents are getting a lot tougher to select because there are now cool florescents, warm florescents, greenhouse florescents, fishtank florescents, daylight florescents, and full-spectrum florescents.

Cool florescents ("shop lights") have a limited spectrum and have been known to even affect behavior in office environments where people have to work under this lighting for long periods. They give the sick green color to photos that is well known by photographers. Since they have a significant green element to their spectrum, they cause certain greens to shift and look quite different than under other kinds of light.

Some people (Tony Koester comes to mind) prefer the "cool mountain" look of the cool florescents, but I find them depressing. I prefer the warm sunshine look of tungstens, and since I model July and August scenery on my layout, the warm yellow look of the tungsten light looks perfect to me and feels just like a warm summer day in Southern Oregon (where I grew up).

Then you get into technical problems around lighting like the way tungsten bulbs run hot and heat up a room more than the same lumens of florescent lights. And while cool florescents are very cheap, the other florescent bulbs cost quite a bit more, with daylight florescents being especially costly.

On my Siskiyou Line, I use low wattage tungstens (15W and 25W) which keeps the heat down, and makes using tungsten lights practical. You can get cheap dimmers for tungsten lights, which is another advantage of them over florescents.

I take a glossy color photo of prototype scenery with colors I want to match, and match the colors under the layout lights to the colors in the photo. I suspect that's one reason people tell me my layout photos look like they were taken outdoors, like this one:

LocoHeadlights.jpg

This photo was taken under the layout lights using a digital camera with a custom white balance matched to the layout lighting, so this is very close to how it actually looks to you when you visit the layout in person.
 
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BIG THANKS to Joe, and the others who contributed to this thread. Looks like a lot of work went into the different topics. I can tell that it's going to be a LOT of help to my layout in the future. Although I'm sure this is a little like most things in life - It looks a lot easier than it is.

Either way I'm sure it will help to point me in the right direction.
 
Ross With a bit of practice it's amazing how fast you pick it up, what i did was a small diorama, i made a blue foam base with a length of flex track glued onto cork roadbed then tried different methods i read about till i found the one's i liked then with a bit of experimentation i got some good results which i now use
 
Your scenic & ballist clinic.

Yes Joe,
Your info is very useful and helpful, keep it comming.
 
I LIKE IT> Just what a newbie to this hobby needs. I will be here often. Any tips on what i can use other than scuptamold????. Looking for cheaper alternatives
 
any way to get the photos back in the posts??
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Other than contacting the original poster, afraid not. In most of those cases the photos were hosted off site and linked to here. Looks like the poster has removed those links so the photos are gone.
Do a search for hminky; grove den; GrampysTrains; to name a few, or better still just take a peruse through the Scenery section here, lots of info to learn from.
Better still, Just ask a How to? question, I'm sure you'll be pleased with the answers and tutorials.

Cheers
Willis
 
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