Will Vale

That looks bang on for the pic you posted previously. Worth persevering!

Gesso is a canvas primer - it's acrylic with chalk in it. I use it like you use the gloop, sometimes with a bit of fine sand mixed in to add texture and body. The great thing is that the acrylic (and presumably PVA) gives the stuff a little bit of flexibility when dry, so it's less susceptible to cracking than a straight plaster finish. For the water, I've had success with Liquitex "pouring medium" from the art shop. It's a clear self-levelling glossy acrylic. Poured in layers of not more than 3mm, it levels out really well, doesn't wick into the banks too much, and dries clear and shiny in about a day. No smell to speak of either. It's probably more expensive by volume than varnish, and definitely more expensive than PVA, but you won't need to spend as much time layering the water so it balances out.

Looks great, the darker colour definitely says mud. The PVA-plaster mix presumably means this is a lot like gesso? Your brushes in the first picture have no idea about what they're getting into

It was the LGB bash, yes - the extended tanks on the tank+tender loco. I must admit I was mainly enjoying the pictures, I need to go back and read the words properly now that we're back from a week away. I added a bit of weight to the Kato chassis, but not much - my loco is built from styrene with some brass rod in the frames for weight and rigidity, and lead mixed into Miliput under the bonnet and in the toolbox. It might be a wee bit bigger than yours (seeing as it's 1:48) which helps. I use graphite on the rails which is a godsend provided you don't want to pull too much. I know what you mean about "legal" subjects, I'm currently painting a 1:72 Dragon Wagon and accompanying Sherman - definitely modelling, but not really RMWeb-able. But seeing the Schöma makes me want to finish this pair of wagons which are sort of related. I finally have the right treadplate for the decks now!

Beautifully crisp and bags of character. Reclining Man is a lucky fella.

I'm glad I'm not the only one who's a fan of this manufacturer - I drew some plans for a more modern Schöma tunnellok to build in 1:35/600mm gauge, but never got very far with it. Must extract finger, as ever you are supplying great motivation. The Kato 4w chassis is a very good choice, I have one under the Ruhrthaler on Tanis and it runs reliably for hours at a time at exhibitions. I bought spares but have never had to use them. BTW your article in CM just came out down under, I loved it.

I like the way you've shrunk the road, but I think the mirroring on the right is a bit obvious and could do with hiding. One thing I find very helpful is the clone brush - you can use it to paint into the picture from a different area (or a different picture) and it can be great for breaking up clones and making them look unique for minimal effort. On this picture it'd be an easy way to remove the duplication in the bush on the left. The mirroring on the right is bigger and would take more work - do you have any other images from the area to give you a bit more to work with?

That's a huge layout given the size of the boxfiles! The engineering of it all looks very cunning - will you be using card, foamboard, timber, plastic or some combo thereof? Should make a lovely home for the 4-CEP.

Sorry James, I missed this (you must have posted just after the downtime?) earlier but glad I found it now. It's always a treat to see some narrow gauge on here. I like the potential in the combination of brass and plastic - you get a really crisp finish where you need it (and the subtlety of gluing the doors is clever stuff) but doing the added-on bits from plastic rather than folding up tiny etches seems like the right approach vis-a-vis sanity. Great stuff, I look forward to seeing the next steps.

My vote is for #3 and #5 - fabulous mass of the loco in #5 in particular. I think it's amazing that the trees read as being in-scale, I wouldn't have thought that was possible!

Thanks for the kind comments, and the fix for the Pfeil number - I must have had 229 stuck in my head or something. I can't promise progress will be very rapid but I'll try and update when there's something to show. I also need to cover up the Z gauge and find somewhere to store it - it's getting dusty...

Great images, I love the feeling of cold combined with the ultra-blue skies. The long frontages would make for a good shelf layout too.

Opel Blitz by Will Vale, on Flickr While I've fallen into the usual post-exhibition-leads-into-Christmas-holidays modelling lull, it's only been a railway modellling lull and I've actually got several non-train projects on the go at the moment. Thankfully I managed to steer my enthusiasm in the direction of railways again by building an Opel Blitz to use on a possible airfield extension to Tanis 1937. (If you haven't seen Tanis, it's an A3 diorama/mini-layout combining Tamiya 1:48 models and figures with scratchbuilt Decauville-gauge rolling stock in an attempt to capture something of the Indiana Jones movies in miniature.) The idea would be to extend the line off to the left, winding around/along a wadi and through a camp to the edge of an airfield. Given the theme the airfield is an intended as an excuse for some of the weirder WW2 Luftwaffe aircraft - I've almost finished a Do335 Pfeil, for example, and I have unbuilt kits of the Storch and the Go229 flying wing for when I muster the courage and skills to attempt them. I'm not going to worry about the combination of late-war prototypes and a pre-war setting, since Lucas and Spielberg didn't seem to either I thought a truck would be a good companion to this scene, and picked up the Tamiya-issued Italeri kit of the Opel Blitz in a HobbyLink Japan sale a year or two ago. It looked nice in the box but sat on the shelf for a while - I only got around to building it at the weekend and it's just seen the primer can today. I was intending to build it straight from the box since I don't know much about the real trucks, but ended up chasing up pictures on the internet and making various changes to suit as I went along. Things I've changed: * Removed the honking great screw bosses for attaching the cab and load bed to the chassis, which opens up the underneath. * Added a very rough scratch-built engine (and radiator, which isn't attached yet) since there was too much air visible through the (very nice) open slatted radiator grille. * Realised that I'd gone too far on the engine and arranged for the cab to be removable with a washer under the seat and a magnet in the fuel tank, so that I can still see it after the truck's finished. * Cut out one of the cab doors so I can pose it open, and added new pedals since what was in the kit bore little relation to reality. * Made framing for the canvas tilt from brass wire, rather than using the supplied plastic tilt. The load bed is pretty nice, but the tilt is the wrong shape (sloping sides, presumably for mould-removal reasons) and meets the top of the load bed in a straight line rather than a wavy fabric edge. * Removed the flag and tool clips from the wings and the towing triangle from the roof - I'm not sure if these were on the early trucks, and I think it suits the layout intent a bit better if it looks slightly less military. I've seen pictures of tools on the sides of the load bed so I might do that instead. I'm intending to make a new canvas cover from foil or tissue or something and leave the rear frame off, which is why it's probably OK to have the rather heavy wire for the tilt - it'll be hidden;) The primer reveals that the load bed pin marks need more putty... I also need to gently sand back the primer since it's rather grainy - this is probably to the good on the chassis, but the wooden sides and the cab will need to be made smoother. Anyway, hope you like it so far - I know this is only tangentially railway-related in itself but the skills do cross over and at some point it will have a layout to live on! For now it can share space with the Kubelwagen in the lower right, assuming I can squeeze it in there.

So all those ribs are individual lengths of microstrip? Looks very neat and tidy. I had to achieve something similar recently for ribbed bridge girders but ended up building a sort of ribbed sheet by edge-gluing lengths of U channel and plain strip together. It worked out in the end but was very fiddly (the sheet wanted to crack and curl up all the time). I suspect your approach is more sensible and probably uses less material to boot.

Yep, please keep posting. The close-up may be cruel but your workmanship certainly stands the scrutiny - I wish I could get my corners so neat and square.

Ogres have layers... That looks very neat. I remember James H saying something about plasticard tending to warp over time. Card presumably doesn't provided you seal it?

Lovely stuff, I've really enjoyed seeing this develop. The weathering adds fantastic mass to everything, that last pic in particular could be the real thing with the combination of fine detail and sense of weight. No need to imagine, you've shown quite clearly what that'd look like

I dunno about that one, I agree that those things (and relay boxes) are currently trendy to add to a layout, and I'm certainly guilty as charged. But if something's ubiquitous on the real thing it's not exactly wrong for it to be ubiquitous on models, provided it's been done with attention to detail and toned-in appropriately. There are lots of little differences in the way cables are handled in different locations which reward observation and a bit of modelling work. It's a bit like saying "this fashion for signals is really tedious, they stand out like a sore thumb with all the blinkenlicht and waggly arms, makes it hard to see the trains." Will

You rase the subject of GURLS, gosh chiz that is a bit much! Stick with TRANES ect. I should sa.

I think this came out really well, especially the second photo. The H&S signs are a nice touch! Will

I voted last week, and what an enjoyably challenging job it was too. Thanks to Andy for organising, and the entrants for entering, there were some fantastic dioramas in there. Will

What Jamie said, basically. Politics exists outside my little bubble, with which I'm quite content - you don't have to engage with the strongly-opinionated if you don't want to. I find the motivation of deadlines vital, what I'm trying to learn at the moment to convert the rush of getting something done on time into motivation for steady progress *after* the show. Most difficult, since I keep getting distracted, currently by Russian warships of all things.

I tried acrylic pouring medium (bought at the art shop, the brand I used is Liquitex) for the still water on Whitemarsh and I like the result very much. It has really good self-levelling behaviour so you get a nice flat surface. I seem to recall that it works out cheaper than the similar "sold for scenery" products. Good art shops have a board with demo patches of all their different gels and media, so you can have a look for yourself - I picked this because it was dead level and had a nice high gloss. With all these things, as John says above pour in *thin* layers and let each dry fully before adding another. Try and keep the dust off while the surface is drying - lay newspaper or similar over the banks without touching the surface, and don't do other scenic work on the layout - scatter gets everywhere. You may want to top-coat with an acrylic varnish (Klear is great if you have some) to get even more shine once the "water" is dry. One other tip - if your canal goes to the edge of the layout, rather than masking it off you might get better results by carefully pouring up to the edge but not adding so much that the stuff spills over. If you mask, the medium will creep up the tape and leave a meniscus, which to my mind looks worse. I did wonder about masking for the first pour, and unmasking for the second, in the hope of filling in the meniscus, but I haven't tried this yet. HTH, Will

it used to be that you could insert videos in media tags, like this: [media]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g4eOzmphcyY&feature=youtu.be[/media] and it would embed them - I've tried it here but it didn't work, maybe it will in a proper post rather than a comment?

You may find that a double loop in that space looks a bit cramped? I was going to suggest you had a look at the "how to build a train set in 6 weeks" thread from the previous incarnation of RMWeb, but it looks to be unavailable at the moment. When it's back, it should be here: http://www.rmweb.co.uk/forum/viewtopic.php?f=44&t=20138 I had a look to see what I could see in the Google cache and internet archive, but without images it won't be much fun. Hopefully Andy will have things up and running again soon...