As promised, here are some pictures of Nutbrook, the tiny "shelf" diorama I've been building for a friend of mine, as it appears now.

As you can see, extra detail and vegetation has been added. One of the key ideas behind doing this project was to practice with detailing items that I've bought but not been able to use yet on my loft layout.

The scene is set in the spring, so I wanted plenty of greenery and flowering shrubs, etc. The biggest problem I had was making the trees. I used the Woodland Scenics tree starter kit to make the big copse near the bridge. Although once finished I think they look pretty decent, they were not the easiest things to make! The foam just would not stick to the trunks and branches, and instead insisted on dropping off and disintegrating, or worse just sticking to me, the furniture and the cat! I can envisage making quite a few trees on my loft layout in future and I am seriously thinking about using a different method.

Other "greenery" is miniNatur white flowers (which I think have a great resemblance to cow parsley if planted quite "tall") and yellow/white tufts, some of which have been used on the abandoned track, together with some broken bits from the trees! I also used Woodland Scenics foliage, which I wish I had used for the trees instead of the clumping stuff. It's much more detailed and behaves itself!

The track was weathered using black, white and brown pastels. This is my first attempt at such a weathering job, but I'm pretty chuffed with it. I do think I may have possibly overdone it on the black stuff, but you live and learn...

The ticket machine was scratch built using similar methods to the passenger info screen, as described in the previous entry. It's not perfect, but I think it's pretty effective. The awning over it is simply OHP film which has had the girders printed on to it using a laser printer.

I couldn't resist posting that last shot even though it shows of the quality of the Bachmann 171 more than my own work!

Once again, any comments, criticism or suggestions are most welcome.

Mike