Ground Cover.

[Beady]

I'm suddenly noticing how many "permanent" layouts don't have basic ground cover (grass, etc), but have everything, including trees and bushes, placed directly on bare plywood. Is it intended to fill in these bare patches at a later date, or is this the finished state?

Oh crap!

 

[Selector]

Most trees can be removed, so a person could add ground cover at a later date. However, I'm not convinced most of those scenes are merely needing some more help at a later date. It's not planned that way, IOW. I always do the ground cover first, then bushes, and then plunk in the trees. To each his/her own....I guess.

 

[montanan]

I'm with Crandell. For me, getting down some sort of ground cover is important. On hard shell (I use hydrocal) I have a gallon of tan colored paint that I will paint to cover the white and then put some different colors of green fine ground foam (Woodland Scenice) using a few different colors. Once the ground cover is on, it is easy to see the contours and give yo a better idea of where trees and bushes can go. What I try to do also is to blend the hard shell scenery into my backdrop like in this photo behind the roundhouse.

After working on this layout for close to 30 years, I want to see as little plywood and hard shell scenery as possible.

 

[RBMNfan]

After two years of working on the 'New Layout' I did get basic ground cover on all of the 5' ×6.5' main section. I am mainly operations oriented and scenery happens in spurts. Details are slowly moving forward.

Sent from my XT1080 using Tapatalk

 

[Epimetheus]

scenicking

After two years of working on the 'New Layout' I did get basic ground cover on all of the 5' ×6.5' main section.

That time span sounds familiar

I am finally starting to lay out land profiles around the trackage. I plunked down some never-die plant stalks to get a feel for where the woods should be. These will come out, then cardboard, plaster rolls, tan paint, and basic ground cover.

I am creating the layout as a stage set - trees, hills, structures, and if it all works you notice the trains last.

 

[hirailer]

I use hydrocal hard shell painted with a dirt colored latex paint, then covered with ground foam, real dirt or whatever the scene dictates. I find it is necessary to do the ground cover first in order to get a "feel" of the land forms, white mountains for example just don't look right.

Mel

 

[goscrewyourselves]

A lot of that could be the individuals priority, some people aren't all that interested in the scenery side of the hobby. On the other hand, and from personal experience from doing it "a about", it is probably a good idea to get the track work in place and running properly before doing any scenery and that is what you may be seeing in layouts that no or limited scenery in place.

 

[riogrande]

I've got my layout so the track is mostly all laid and the non-yard part has been covered fully with cardboard webbing, then plaster cloth. I have started to put some plaster over the plaster cloth to cover it, but may experiment with drywall mud too. I just picked up a can of light tan latex paint to add a base color which will be weathered sand/sandstone for eastern Utah desert canyon country. Here are some photo's from the past 3 or 4 months of work assuming I added them correctly.

Corner before filling in with cardboard strips.

End is filled in now and river banks.

Most of the plaster cloth is on:

For ground cover, I'll probably put in some brush, yellow grass in the flatter areas. On the canyon slopes, it should be talus and scrub brush. I'm working on some scrub brush using Rob Spanglers method of cutting small pieces from paint stripper pads and coating them with Eucalyptus o Sage ground foam.