Hi, all,
As some of you know, for the past 15 months I've been working on a little 4' x 4' N scale layout, depicting (roughly) a couple of scenes from the early 1960's Santa Fe's Peavine Line branch off the transcontinental main from Ash Fork, Arizona to Phoenix, Arizona.
Here's a little layout construction chronology. Just sharing it for general consumption by all:
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My railroad was made with Woodland Scenics risers on a two 2' x 4' plywood module bases.
#1 (in the middle of the loop is my 1/10 size model of my N scale railroad I made prior to starting on the N scale railroad itself):
#2 built up using foam insulation boards the scenery:
#3: This is shot of the canyon 'Prieta Grade' module with WS plaster cloth laid down over the carved foam canyon wall. The plaster gave a base shell for the followon scenery paint, foam, etc. You *can* paint the foam directly using latex paint. In my case, I was using the WS earth color for my base and it wouldn't penetrate/hold on the naked foam, and therefore needed plaster foundation. WS Plaster cloth did give me a rocky ground base texture that I like:
#4: This shot shows same module, looking across the canyon in the other direction. You can see that I used wadded up newspaper for part of the canyon wall below the track level here. You can also see that I was just stacking 1" and 2" foam insulation, gluing it using WS Foam Tack Glue, then carving it:
#5 - then I put Sculptamold over everything to give it a good rock texture look:
#6: This photo shows the plaster cloth down. I put Sculptamold
over the plaster cloth to give it a more natural texture than the
'cloth impregnated look' that the native Plaster Cloth had. Then
I painted with WS earth color on everything, then painted on matte medium (i.e. WS Scenic Cement) as adhesive, then used WS ground foam sprinkled on for the ground texture. I'm amazed the WS ground foam looks so good my first time out, it's nearly impossible to make it look bad as long as you select appropriate colors. I used the WS roadbed.
(No I'm not a walking Woodland Scenics advertisement. I just didn't have the time to figure out other alternatives that I'm sure many on this Forum
will also tell you about - smile).
#7: This shot shows a view of the 'Prieta Grade' module in natural sunlight, after I'd scenicked the canyon wall. I used a lot of 'earth' color WS foam to give it texture as a base, then lightly sprinkled on WS 'burnt grass' color foam. As I'm modeling Arizona, I don't use any deep greens of any sort (as Arizona brush is too dry to ever look like lush East Coast forests).
The natural sunlight is what really brings out the model color photograph, by the way.
#8: and to make a long story short, here's what it looks like today:
===============
As some of you know, for the past 15 months I've been working on a little 4' x 4' N scale layout, depicting (roughly) a couple of scenes from the early 1960's Santa Fe's Peavine Line branch off the transcontinental main from Ash Fork, Arizona to Phoenix, Arizona.
Here's a little layout construction chronology. Just sharing it for general consumption by all:
=====================
My railroad was made with Woodland Scenics risers on a two 2' x 4' plywood module bases.
#1 (in the middle of the loop is my 1/10 size model of my N scale railroad I made prior to starting on the N scale railroad itself):
#2 built up using foam insulation boards the scenery:
#3: This is shot of the canyon 'Prieta Grade' module with WS plaster cloth laid down over the carved foam canyon wall. The plaster gave a base shell for the followon scenery paint, foam, etc. You *can* paint the foam directly using latex paint. In my case, I was using the WS earth color for my base and it wouldn't penetrate/hold on the naked foam, and therefore needed plaster foundation. WS Plaster cloth did give me a rocky ground base texture that I like:
#4: This shot shows same module, looking across the canyon in the other direction. You can see that I used wadded up newspaper for part of the canyon wall below the track level here. You can also see that I was just stacking 1" and 2" foam insulation, gluing it using WS Foam Tack Glue, then carving it:
#5 - then I put Sculptamold over everything to give it a good rock texture look:
#6: This photo shows the plaster cloth down. I put Sculptamold
over the plaster cloth to give it a more natural texture than the
'cloth impregnated look' that the native Plaster Cloth had. Then
I painted with WS earth color on everything, then painted on matte medium (i.e. WS Scenic Cement) as adhesive, then used WS ground foam sprinkled on for the ground texture. I'm amazed the WS ground foam looks so good my first time out, it's nearly impossible to make it look bad as long as you select appropriate colors. I used the WS roadbed.
(No I'm not a walking Woodland Scenics advertisement. I just didn't have the time to figure out other alternatives that I'm sure many on this Forum
will also tell you about - smile).
#7: This shot shows a view of the 'Prieta Grade' module in natural sunlight, after I'd scenicked the canyon wall. I used a lot of 'earth' color WS foam to give it texture as a base, then lightly sprinkled on WS 'burnt grass' color foam. As I'm modeling Arizona, I don't use any deep greens of any sort (as Arizona brush is too dry to ever look like lush East Coast forests).
The natural sunlight is what really brings out the model color photograph, by the way.
#8: and to make a long story short, here's what it looks like today:
===============
