Gloucester Road Posted December 16, 2011 Author Share Posted December 16, 2011 Ive decided to leave the gate and stop lines as is. In an effort to keep the thread upto date with the layout here is a short update. First, spent time cutting out scalescene windows and putting on the base layer. This is an amasingly fidilly think to do in N and took some time to do, by far the part of constructing these kits I like the least. Then I filled in another grassy area with the prevouse technique, some rusty rail and wheel sets need to be added to fill in this area to complete it. looking across the yard to new shops: close up of shops: close up of new grass: overhead of grass: Stephen 2 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Premium MrSimon Posted December 16, 2011 RMweb Premium Share Posted December 16, 2011 Looks good! Is that static grass on the sleepers? Does it affect the running at all? Keep up the good work! Simon Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lee m22 Posted December 16, 2011 Share Posted December 16, 2011 Nice work! If I can get my green scenes looking as sweet as that when the time comes, I'll be a very happy man! I love the mix of static grass an the 'tufts' of the more dense media. The dusting of greenery amungst the ballast looks bang on too! Regards Lee Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gloucester Road Posted December 17, 2011 Author Share Posted December 17, 2011 So here is a shamless plug for a book; i know its the wrong scale but it's really is good. Nigel Burkin's book "Modern Wagons in 4mm Scale" has a good overview of the major modern wagons and 4mm models, and ways to improve and modify them. The book focuses on 4mm but all the wagons mentioned are available in N and most of the detailing can be done useing parts from N manufactures/detailers. There are some good pictures of real and model railways; though it focuses on OO there is no reason that it cant be used in N. Right plug over. Meant to mention the other day that I did something different with the grass this time. I had to use a template to get the grass to fit in the area needed so I traced it out on a piece of paper and then transfered this onto the acetate paper, once the layers of grass had been applied I wanted some longer areas than others. So i cut holes in the template of where I wanted longer grass, set this template with the holes on the grass mat and applied hairspray to the holes and then grassed it; let it dry and did it again. What i ended up with was areas of longer grass ie. close to the bushes, several other longer clumps and some longer areas near/in the track. From the images you can't really see this as the phones camera doesn't pick it up, but it's there when you see it. It helped to get away from that mowed lawn look that was starting to happen Back to scalescenes buliding. Stephen Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gloucester Road Posted December 17, 2011 Author Share Posted December 17, 2011 Looks good! Is that static grass on the sleepers? Does it affect the running at all? Keep up the good work! Simon Yes there is a liitle grass on the sleepers and ballast sort of an experiment to see if it affects the running, hasn't yet (fingers crossed). Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gloucester Road Posted December 31, 2011 Author Share Posted December 31, 2011 Its good to have Rmweb back, like having an old friend return. A belated Merry Christmas. Not much done over the Christmas break as the Santa brought loads of legos so Dad (me) was hired to assemble various lego kits,an airplane, helicopter, terminal building, star wars republic frigate, star wars slave one and a sith lord interceptor. The boys did a great job of putting them together and then dad was used to figure out where all the "extra" pieces went. All in all a good time and many hours of happy playing since. On the modelling front more grass has been planted, pics to follow. Awoke this morning to an interesting and sad scene on the layout. Some 30 years ago a mate of mine gave me some model planes he and his dad made, they are around HO scale but have been happily flying above every N layout I have made. Well this morning the Spitfire had crashed into the Loco shed entrance roads, no major damage to trains or aircraft (only lost a blade on the prop) the B17 however crashed into the container yard, then continued its journey to meet the floor; wings, props, guns and tails scattered all over the floor. Do damage to the layout but the plane might be beyond repair. Pics to follow Oh well. Happy New Year to all! Stephen Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
devondynosoar118 Posted December 31, 2011 Share Posted December 31, 2011 I am up to only 4 Lego kits this time. The republic frigate is massive, bet that took a while! Still got the Haynes infernal combustion engine kit to do... Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gloucester Road Posted January 2, 2012 Author Share Posted January 2, 2012 I am up to only 4 Lego kits this time. The republic frigate is massive, bet that took a while! Still got the Haynes infernal combustion engine kit to do... My son took 5 hours 20 min to complete it, mrs and i enjoyed the piece. So here are the pics as promised: crashed spitfire: crashed B17: Ok enough with the damage, here is the grass that has sprung up; it has centered around the container terminal. Areas that have been done with grass before and having seen how well my self made grassmats look i have decided to redo these areas. So out came the scrapper and vaccum and off we went. This is the area that leads into the container terminal, there was a small mound of static grass here but it looks much better now. the opening: overview of the area completed: drivers eye view crossing the road entering the container terminal: some things to note here. I decided that the green was becoming to overall so ive started adding burnt grass to the mix There is just a hint of it in most of the grass, however if you look at the grass against the fence it is mnuch browner. I like this touch and breaks up the colours. a view leaving the terminal: Here is the other side of the terminal next to the shed, it to has been done before but looks better now. This is the overhead view and is up to the fence and around the back of the containers. The same effect is used with more burnt grass towards the fence blending of grass, fence and scalescenes paper: Here is the loco stored in the terminal: So there we are. More grass is being readied and the buildings are being built still. Updates soon. 4 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gloucester Road Posted January 5, 2012 Author Share Posted January 5, 2012 Well I've been released back to active flight status, it's been an interesting three months. Modeling has been fun, not quite as productive as I thought it might be but fun nontheless, modelling returns to a biweekly schedule. Stephen Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Premium Kris Posted January 5, 2012 RMweb Premium Share Posted January 5, 2012 It's good that you're back up and running. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Gold TomE Posted January 5, 2012 RMweb Gold Share Posted January 5, 2012 (edited) Hi Stephen. Is that your mount in your Avatar? Always liked the Avanti, something a bit different to all the biz jets I deal with in the day job! Nice work with the grass, and it looks like the B17 suffered a clean break, so could be salvageable! Tom. Edited January 5, 2012 by TomE Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gloucester Road Posted January 6, 2012 Author Share Posted January 6, 2012 Yes, I fly the avanti it is a fun plane and quite a performer for a turboprop. The b17 was a clean break and is repairable, all willhave to wait as work now beckons. Thanks for the kind comment about the grass. Stephen Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gloucester Road Posted January 18, 2012 Author Share Posted January 18, 2012 So having been released back to flying I have done a week of flying around the west coast, always fun to fly around LAX, San Diego, Mexico (cabos), Las Vegas and Seattle. Especially when its cold and snowy in New Hampshire. Today was to be a day I worked on some more static grass along the front of the layout, so out came some paper and we drew up some templates: This was then trasnsferred to some glossy paper and off we went (using my grass mat technique), however when it came to pealing it off it didnt work. There was no peeling, so we tried again....still it didnt work, so I gave up. Came to the conclusion that because I was using the same piece of glossy paper from previous entries that the surface was not smooth anymore. Tested my process on a plastic sandwich back and it worked, so we will try that tomorrow. I was not however going to let a day free to myself go by without doing anything on the train so I worked on the Small Corner Shops from Scalescenes in duplicate. I was kept company by our two cats: Here is the partial construction: Walls up: In place for the night (clearly not finished): That's it for today; have some free time tomorrow so will try the grass again. Stephen 3 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Gold roundhouse Posted January 18, 2012 RMweb Gold Share Posted January 18, 2012 Yes, I fly the avanti it is a fun plane and quite a performer for a turboprop. The b17 was a clean break and is repairable, all willhave to wait as work now beckons. Thanks for the kind comment about the grass. Stephen I was wondering about you photo. I have seen photos of these planes but saw them in the flesh for the first time sitting in a hangar at Carlsbad airport hr San Diego on New Years days we were leaving for LAX. Greg looking planes. Ian Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gloucester Road Posted January 19, 2012 Author Share Posted January 19, 2012 I was wondering about you photo. I have seen photos of these planes but saw them in the flesh for the first time sitting in a hangar at Carlsbad airport hr San Diego on New Years days we were leaving for LAX. Greg looking planes. Ian Here is a shot of a Brand new Piaggio that i was assigned to in April 2011 the "owners" area looking forward Back to Modeling. Tried my method of grass today using a sandwich bag instead of gloss transperency paper and to my relief it worked a charm. I was also able to get all three pieces of grass started at the same time This has one layer of static grass applied; it is then allowed too dry. You can tell when its dry because the glue goes clear when viewed from the bottom. Once dry the strips were peeled off and then layers of hairspray and grass were applied. The following pic is three applications of grass and spray, looks more grass like. Glue was then placed were new grass was going. First piece of grass down, turf and shrubs added to blend This process was repeated two more times with grass being set down and blended in and this is what we ended with. 67027 was caught on a short enterpise service, only two VGAs, running past the new grassy area. Que gratuitous close ups. So thats where we are tonight. Much happier with the grass here now and will use the sandwich bag method as it really comes off easily. I also used more of a blend this time round, from several post ago I was using some burnt grass. This time I started with a base of light green, then closer to where the track is i went over with an application of burnt grass. Finally went back over the line made between light and burnt grass with a blend of light and burnt grass; this gives a thick grass and a nice brown towards the track with a blened green moving away from the track. Thanks for stopping by. Stephen 6 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Removed a/c Posted January 19, 2012 Share Posted January 19, 2012 I am enjoying watching the progress of your layout Stephen. It is looking really smart !! Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
artizen Posted January 19, 2012 Share Posted January 19, 2012 I like the idea of doing the messy bits away from the layout. You always have to wonder about how much of the static stuff stays around the track for miniature motors to pick up! What is the biggest piece you think you can achieve using this method? (Or is that not a problem on your layout.) Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
will5210 Posted January 19, 2012 Share Posted January 19, 2012 That looks really good! Very clever to prepare it 'off site'. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Gold roundhouse Posted January 19, 2012 RMweb Gold Share Posted January 19, 2012 (edited) The planes i saw at Carlsbad were just like your photos. The grass is very effective. Kepe up the progress photos. Ian Edited January 19, 2012 by roundhouse Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
devondynosoar118 Posted January 19, 2012 Share Posted January 19, 2012 Nice work again, amazing what a difference filling those blank spaces makes. Good idea on the mats too. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
bmthtrains - David Posted January 19, 2012 Share Posted January 19, 2012 Don't know how I missed this thread, just been catching up - very impressive work with the grass, and I really like the attention to detail and creation of individual scenes - very inspiring! David Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lee m22 Posted January 19, 2012 Share Posted January 19, 2012 I really do love the end result of your static grass! Such an enhancement of the scene. Regards Lee Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gloucester Road Posted January 19, 2012 Author Share Posted January 19, 2012 I like the idea of doing the messy bits away from the layout. You always have to wonder about how much of the static stuff stays around the track for miniature motors to pick up! What is the biggest piece you think you can achieve using this method? (Or is that not a problem on your layout.) Im not sure but I have several large areas that need to be covered, so we will see. I imagine it might be limited to the size of paper and how well the glue sets and how it peels. Thanks to all for you kind comments about the grass. The nice thing about this hobby ,and the this forum in particular, is the interaction of modelers helping each other and being able to inspire each other. Another learning curve today and something we need to be willing to do, that is correct mistakes or stuff we're not happy with. Spent today correcting areas that im not happy with, pictures soon. 2 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gloucester Road Posted January 21, 2012 Author Share Posted January 21, 2012 As I stated earlier we must be willing to accept critiscism and improve on old work. So having improved my static grass process I decided to go back and redo some of the areas I had done in the past. It is the area to the left off what I did the other day, it's where the black palacade fencing is .Here is the before and after shots. Before After Close ups This change was precipated by the Mrs who after looking at the new grass said, wow that looks much better than that spot does. So out came the vaccum and the old stuff came up and new "mats" put down. I'm much happier with how it looks but more importantly the lady of the house said "that looks much much better." Yes! Stephen 3 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Gold roundhouse Posted January 21, 2012 RMweb Gold Share Posted January 21, 2012 Which make of palisade fencing are you using? Interesting that you have painted it black. Is that based on any particular location? Ian Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
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