The wife's HO Atlas layout...

[FM C liner]

Thanks for posting the video Tony. Your video skills look good to me and so does the layout. Next time we want to see some trains running around that bad boy.

Scott

 

[wombat457]

What to do?

Evening Guys,

I am at a little bit of a stand still with the layout while I wait for supplies to arrive tomorrow and Monday so was looking at what I had to do, scenery wise.

My main concern at the moment is how "bland and uninteresting" the area shown in yellow (in the graphic below) is and will look. This area is only around 18 - 19" around, following the curvature of the cliff face, and ranges from about an inch (on the left) up to about 5" at it widest point between the Lake and the Cliff face. In hindsight, I should have brought the Lake to the bottom of the cliff.

Anyway, I have no idea of what to do in this area to make it interesting. My initial thought was to put in a board walk (right to left) around to a jetty. That idea went out the back door as soon as I realized the jetty would take half the lake if it were to be to scale.

So now I am lost and looking for ideas from you guys please.

 

[wombat457]

Scott,

Thanks mate and yeah I know - trains running Problem is, this is just one side of the layout that I cleaned out to start doing the tree's and the vid. All of the stuff that was on that part is now on the left side of the layout, which is still there (I think) hidden beneath a pile of who knows what.

I guess what you are unwittingly telling me then is to get of my BUTT and clean the layout of properly. As such, the next video WILL show a train running, good bad or otherwise!

 

[Lynnb]

First off nice job with the video, very very clear. For the area in Yellow I have a great challenge for you, do you have a semi flat spot on top of the mountain in back or you can simply carve into it and make just a very small lake and have a waterfall coming down the side of the mountain and drop into the lake. You can build up the edge of the lake with rocks and logs and normal debri you would find at the base of a water fall and the water would be crashing over the edge of the river where it meets. And of course water falls means lots of lush greenery from the steady mist so it would give you a reason to detail a bit on the mountain. For the falls itself I just experimented with clear silicone streaked on a storage container lid and it was clear in a matter of a couple days, basicly you do streaks coming out the calking gun side by side then you whatever ( I just grabbed a 4 inch screw) to pull it down to the bottom and join it all together but at the same time keep it thin.

 

[Lynnb]

Scott,

Thanks mate and yeah I know - trains running Problem is, this is just one side of the layout that I cleaned out to start doing the tree's and the vid. All of the stuff that was on that part is now on the left side of the layout, which is still there (I think) hidden beneath a pile of who knows what.

I guess what you are unwittingly telling me then is to get of my BUTT and clean the layout of properly. As such, the next video WILL show a train running, good bad or otherwise!

Hey Tony you think when I'm working on an area all the stuff doesn't get moved to the other clean spot? Welcome to the club

 

[wombat457]

Lynn,

I do like your idea of the waterfall, something that certainly didn't think about, and yeah, I can create a small lake/pond on the mountain for that purpose. I will have to carve out a little of the lake bank though to get it up to the base of the cliff, in fact, I could carve out all of the embankment beneath the cliff face and enlarge the lake by a couple of inches. The lake is pretty screwed up anyway and will most likely have to be redone or at least repaired.

I have never done a water fall before, but have sen a lot on them. I have some stuff for creating waves and water effects, think it is called Water Effects actually, so making the water shouldn't be too hard, maybe. It would also break up the starkness of the cliff face as well by dividing it in two, which would definitely be better than what is there.

You are making work for me though, and I like it!

Yep, that is all I do - move stuff from a o B then back again, constantly

 

[Lynnb]

I think you will find your creative side with doing this scene. I gotta check my inventory as I think I used the water effects on my last layout which is actually the waterfall on the present layout as I was able to save my wall mountains and waterfall when I disassembled the last layout but anyway if its the same stuff I used I wasn't real happy with the results. But this is all a learning curve anyway. So lets have some fun with it.

 

[wombat457]

As always, I'll do a practice run on something else before I do the layout. If this water effects stuff isn't that great, I'll look at using clear silicon.

Thanks mate, this ought to be fun.

 

[wombat457]

Evening/Morning All,

While I wait for the stuff I need to arrive, I am slowly working my way to the left of the layout. I am starting on the residential section going from semi rural to mini suburbia. Here is the deviding fence between the Lake and that area:

Like most farm fences, this isn't perfectly aligned, it is crooked and a little in need of some repairs, but that is how I intended it. Once it dries properly and sets in, I will be weathering it as an old fence and putting in the appropriate weeds and such. Stayed tuned for those amazing reformations!!!

 

[Lynnb]

Fence looks good and right at home. When ever I work with wood I stain it before assembling that way no glue will show and even after I have it assembled I often tone things down a bit more. Keep up the great work.

 

[wombat457]

Thanks Lynn, I tend to work the other way around, build the thing, put it in place then use Micro Mark Grey weathering stain. It is all finished now so I will post a pic of the completed project, as small as it is.

I received all of the new Scenic Express stuff yesterday, so tonight is ground cover build up time and getting more of the trees in. I have also done a little more ground work to the left of where the fence is, about another 6" worth, that you will see in the updated pictures.

Finally, for the moment, I hope to get all the stuff cleaned of the left idea of the layout and put up a Video of a train actually running tonight. I wont be able to post the video until after midnight (eastern) though due to very limited upload quota with our ISP. After midnight is all free

Thanks for looking guys.

 

[wombat457]

A quick pick of the finished thing:

Thanks guys.

 

[Resqnu]

Looks great! Looking forward to the next video from your production company.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[wombat457]

Thank you, I have just finished doing one of one of my favorite engines running the whole layout. It is being upoaded as I type and will be posted ASAP.

There is also another that simply shows the layout itself.

Thanks for looking.

 

[wombat457]

First Train Run ... yeah!

Here is the, much anticipated, new release from Wombat Productions. Well, maybe not much anticipated, probably not even anticipated really, none the less, here is my first video of the layout in action.

Before watching this I would ask that you take into consideration a few things:

1: I am lousy at videoing (obviously)
2: It is "virgin track" meaning it has never been cleaned since being laid
3: The loco is filthy and also needs a darn good clean, but I could wait

You will also notice that the engine slows, quite a lot, in places then speeds up. I am assuming that this is due to the state of the track and the engine, although am open to other opinions on that.

Anyway, here it is in glorious Technicolor, or something:

By the way, the vid goes for about 1.55 minutes.


https://vimeo.com/111321198

Thanks fo r looking guys and all comments, especially about the "hesitation" will be greatly appreciated.

 

[wombat457]

Okay, this will be the last video for a little while, at least until I can figure how to do them properly. This is just an overview of the right side of the layout which, hopefully, gives a better indication of the colors and what little detail there is at the moment.

Sorry for using you guys as test subjects for my learning - I will improve.

https://vimeo.com/111321749

 

[Lynnb]

A quick pick of the finished thing:

Thanks guys.

That looks much better.

 

[Lynnb]

Both videos looked great , nice everything and shows your starting to enjoy the tip again.

 

[wombat457]

Thank you Lynn and yes, I am enjoying it again. Now I have the dead fall from Scenic Express I can get back into putting in the trees. I can tell, there is a LOT of dead stuff mixed in and will look good I think once tree's go over it all.

Here is a quick pic of the dead fall straight from the bottle:

And a close up of the fence and ground cover around it:

 

[Lynnb]

Looking good , don't forget the fine burnt grass I find it works great. I think when I did some of the armature trees from ws I used hairspray on the armature then build it up although there are so many different ways to get there. I think I will try doing a mix of furnace filter trees and some ws armature trees for the hill area I'm working on now.