Having laid out a number of bits and pieces in my wine box to see if I liked it, I then went on holiday for a week - Mallorca if you insist on knowing. On my return I took another look at the proposed layout and decided that, with one or two adjustments, I still like it. Normally at this stage I would set off and build the track, but I don't need to do that as it's being recycled from an abandoned project. So, instead I've begun making the buildings that this layout will need.

I have in my store of unstarted kits a couple of Kibri kits that are just the job for what I have in mind, so I set to on the first of them. I won the kits on e-bay and I'm astounded by the sheer quantity of plastic that I got for my money.

The wall sections come "pre-coloured" like this:

Hopefully I can make the colouring a bit more convincing, but we'll see.

First, I went over the whole wall section with a coating of "mortar" - in my case B & Q's One Coat Sandstone emulsion, which I bought in a test pot (lots of paint for about ??1.20). After letting the paint become touch-dry, I used a damp make-up sponge to remove most of the paint from the brick surfaces. The result was this:

Yes I know, the wall panel has changed! Once it had dried, I used standard dry-brush techniques to add a coat of Humbrol Acrylic No. 70 (Brick Red), working the brush at an angle of about 45 degrees to the mortar courses. I now have this:

Looks like I need to go over it again with the drybrushing.