Tales from the Riverbank #1

(You may want to read this with your internal train of thought set to 'Alan Bennett-voice mode' for extra effect )

After several kind people gave me a gentle nudge at the Member's day, here is a bit of a kick-start to the scenic work on Victoria Bridge. It has been sat on the shelf for too long!

The basic scenery had been encased in a bandage layer, so first job tonight was to fill in all of the rather obvious weave which made the ground look like it was covered in netting. To do this, I mixed kiln dried sand with PVA glue to give a rough, muddy texture. This was then bodged around with a variety of impliments,sprayed with more of the red primer (which will give a sandstone-y base to further painting and foliage) and layers of matt varnish and a variety of glues.

The layers of 'stuff' were applied with deliberate lack of care and attention (the most fun you can have whilst model making) in the hope that the substances involved reacted with each other oddly and created a random, muddy concoction of colours and textures. It almost worked... and if something goes totally wrong it can easily have some other accidental decoration spread over the top of it!

I also built up and filled in the beginnings of the cutting on the right hand side. This is only very sightly exaggerated compared to the real thing, and combined with the foreground trees will give the passing train (at this point, imagine a smart Prarie with a rake of GWR carriages, or maybe in that odd modern age steam fashion, a set of teaks!) a useful scenic 'tunnel' to vanish into.

The left hand side will have a scenic break of some sort of bushy foliage, which is not too far removed from the real thing, if maybe a little closer to the bridge.

Good to get back into it, I will be running trains soon