Carrying on with more progress on Sproston, the next task was to paint all the landscape with Windsor and Newton 'dark umber' poster paint -,for no other reason than I had two tins of the stuff!! This at least put an end to all the dreaded "snow"...

The road surfaces were painted with thinned Humbrol hs209 'tarmac' enamel paint, and Jarvis 'rough pasture' scatter was applied to the hillsides on top of diluted pva glue, I found that this needed more than one application, to achieve a satisfactory coverage.

The ground level has been stepped around the church to provide more visual interest.

Small pieces of dark green lichen ( again from Jarvis ) were glued in place to represent bushes, small trees and scrub vegetation, mainly around the backscene, - which is photographic ("entering town") and much cut about to fit the profile required... - If I were to do this again, I would put the backscene in BEFORE the scenery contruction began in earnest!!! The area behind the goods yard is still not complete - hence the 'sky' backscene, also the road exit through the backscene beside the church is still to be tackled - I tend to leave the difficult areas till last!!

The churchyard and back garden lawns were again Jarvis - 'premier turf' mid green scatter.

As work progressed and plans were finalised, so other finishes were applied.'Natural scenics' dark brown earth scatter for gardens, and Jarvis dark brown for lineside and the goods yard.

Fine sawdust was used ontop of pva glue to represent a sandy road surface around the area of the disused searchlight battery/farm shop.

The surface of the coal yard area and around the loco shed was made using the spent activated charcoal from a product called "Little Hotties", - which is used to keep your hands warm...this was first crushed to make the lumps finer, and then scattered over a coating of pva glue. I am quite pleased with the effect, the only downside being you have to be careful you don't scrape your knuckles on it when brushing around the area, as the iron filings in it act like a cheese grater on skin....

More greenery has since been added - the trees (12 to date ) are "woodland scenics" - these are very good, three have been 'converted' ( if thats the correct term! ) to represent Silver Birches. Bushes and hedges have sprung up along the roadside (Peco and Jarvis again), along with Ratio and Peco fencing .

I have tried to create an sense of decay around the WW2 searchlight battery, - but this is still a 'work in progress' ( not enough greenery ).

As far as the buildings are concerned, I have tried to arrange them in a convincing realistic manner, - five of them are 'ready to plant' structures, and all except one ( the pillbox - which is Hornby 'skaledale' ) are from Bachmann 'scenecraft' range, the rest being card or plastic kits.             Well, thats all for the time being, any comments are always welcome.