goldngreen

More on weathering cows. The cows were weathered using Modelmates Mud Brown weathering liquid. It is very easy to use. It is water soluble but dries like ink. To weather the cows I just painted it on and then let it down with a wet brush until I had the colouring I wanted. The cattle dock is weathered using the pastels method. Perhaps I need more cows in there?

I think the unusual subject and the multiple levels are really effective.

It is not every day that when I am asked what I have been doing that I am able to answer "weathering cows". I had that opportunity today so I grabbed it with both hands. My original plan included the possibility of a cattle dock. The time has come. The cattle dock is going in the original planned location at the back to the right. I want to make most of the features on the layout either scratch built, or made from less familiar kits, in the hope that it will look a little different. I therefore considered scratch building a cattle dock. I looked at how to make the fencing and came to the conclusion that an etch would be the best option. For the gates I thought plastic but it is difficult to fashion such things from scratch in N gauge. As for the platform there are many options but Peco platform edgings seemed like a good option. As I reviewed the options I realised that I was pretty much describing the Ratio cattle dock so this time I decided to swallow my pride and buy the kit. The kit goes together easily. I did however find the lights difficult to make. The posts are very delicate. I managed to snap 2, one while clipping off the sprue with clippers designed for the purpose, the other with a paint brush. I managed to fix them both with Mek Pak! Perhaps 2mm is bit beyond me these days with my aging eyes. The finished kit is shown below plonked on the layout in the intended position. I will have to fix it permanently to deal with the gap at the base. I used a slightly unusual configuration for the gate positions to ensure cattle could be loaded from both pens on this very short siding. It is weathered in a lime washed state complete with weathered Graham Farish cows. The photo tells me that I will also need to blend in the lime washed state to the track and hide the join between the steps and the platform.

Amazing. I could almost believe that the lathe, stove and kettle were real.

Looking good. I hope it goes well.

I hope it goes well. Please keep posting the progress.

That is quite a challenge you are taking on. I will be interested to follow the progress.

Thanks for the feedback and for reminding me that my old copy of Photoshop is Elements, not Express.

I must admit I had forgotten about Paintshop Pro. I used to use it. I will have to check to see where it has got to. I was not aware of Zerene Stacker. I will take a look at that. I prefer largely card buildings in N gauge since I do not believe that I am capable of getting as a good a brick effect, at the small scale, as I can using a good printed sheet. The signal box is an exception! Since my approach to making model buildings is to design them like a kit on the computer first and then print them off, I find I need quite a lot of the features in something like the Gimp. For example I would have layers called Walls, Windows, Roof etc. Each one of those layers would have sub-layers for individual facets of the Walls, Windows etc. I also like the advanced auto-selection features and the ability to soften the edge of selections. The colour, contrast and brightness transformations are useful. I also use photographs of real walls/roofs for some brick and tile effects for which I use the Gimp for squaring up.

I found The Gimp to have quite a learning curve. I still sometimes have to refer back to references and get online help when I come back to it after a break. I use it because it gives me pretty much the power of a full copy of Photoshop which I believe is currently £238 per year. It even includes features like nested layers which I use a lot in designing buildings for printing. The redeeming factors of The Gimp for me are: It is very powerful It is free You can become very fast with it if you use the keyboard shortcuts for which there is a Quick Reference The fact that it is free means there is lots of support. In particular it is easy to find short how-to videos on YouTube for almost anything you might want to do with it I also occasionally use Paint.Net and just fall back to Paint for simple cropping and resizing. I rarely use my old copy of Photoshop Elements now as I find it as difficult to use as the Gimp and less powerful. What do you use? I hope Santa is good to you with the pastels!

They look brilliant. I am learning a lot from your weathering posts. I will have to get the airbrush out again and do some more.

The living room looks good like that. Are you going to be pressing for keeping things that way?

I was pleased to get a comment from Mikkel on the subdued colours I had used on the engine shed. Despite not achieving his amazing standards I thought I would share how I do it. Subdued colours are something I am aiming for on the layout as I always like the layouts with subdued colours at shows. On the engine shed I used The Gimp to subdue the colour of the printed Scalescenes Red Brick, however on the other areas and all over the rest of the layout I use pastels. I have two sets that I rely on: The Black to White set is from a high street branch of The Works having seen a recommendation from BRM's Phil Parker. I picked up the landscape set at a show such a long time ago that I do not remember who sold it to me. It used to be available from Amazon but I have not been able to find it there recently. I did find one on eBay. Fortunately I have a spare! On all painted surfaces and the scenery I paint using standard colours and then dull down using similar coloured pastels. I often use a few and then blend them on the surface with a dry brush. I like the finish not just for the colours but also the soft edges and the very matt finish. It works particularly well on ground cover and stone surfaces. They clean up well using the vacuum cleaner extension and can be sealed using a spray varnish if necessary. The signal box was finished this way after being painted with Precision Paints GWR light and dark stone, plus Humbrol brick red and slate colours.

Pleased to hear that it helped.

I am not an expert but guessed that, if you were finding that the brightness diminished as you added more, it was probably in series. I have not wired up LEDs before, only traditional bulbs. That prompted me to look on the internet to see what was said about LEDs specifically. I found this which might be useful: https://www.ledsupply.com/blog/wiring-leds-correctly-series-parallel-circuits-explained/. Having said that, the lighting looks great in your later pictures so I think you have a good solution.

Are you wiring the LEDs in series or in parallel?

I am sure you are right. As you can probably tell from the previous post, I have never been happy with the doors. I think I might scratch build some replacements. It would also help if they fitted better.

A quick run down on materials used for the engine shed. Outside bricks: Scalescenes Red Brick TX01 with the colour dulled down using The Gimp Inside white washed bricks: Scalescenes Painted Brick TX05 Guttering: Ratio Guttering & Drainpipes Doors: Ratio Doors with the arched tops removed with a razor saw Roof: York Modelmaking Slates N-Tiles01 Windows: Scene-Setters Glazing Bars 3x4mm - I got these at a show. They are not currently listed on the website as they are rebuilding the site. I made the frames look more worn and yellow using a pastel. I smothered them in the pastel colour and then brushed it off. It sticks to the bars just enough but comes off the clear areas easily.

Thanks. I am trying to get that look across the layout as I always find the layouts with subdued colours to be my favourites at shows. In this case I used Scalescenes Red Brick for the walls but I dulled it down just a little before printing using The Gimp. I have put more information on the build on the next posting.

After a long hiatus for the summer progress has continued a little. The engine shed has been largely finished for some time but I put the internal white washed bricks in this week to finish the job. The engine shed will be adjacent to the coaling stage, to which I am adding coal now! It is not modelled on a prototype. It is however in the GWR style with similarities to Tetbury without the water tower, or a shorter version of Wallingford. A view looking inside a little. The camera never lies; having seen the images I took for the blog I will have to improve the weathering on the doors. It will help cover the scenic break bridge to the right of the layout. This means that, amazingly, I am still largely keeping to my original plan. Here is a view of it plonked in that location.

In the first photo I think it looks good. I can believe the forced perspective and therefore believe that the motte is bigger than it really is but more distant. I also like the winding path - it left me in no doubt about what I was meant to be seeing. Perhaps you can enhance the illusion further by de-saturating the colours progressively up the motte when you come to do the scenic work. The other viewing angles reveal the reality but this is as expected since they are not the angles from which the forced perspective is expected to work. I am not sure what you can do about that. Even if you model less of the motte and push more of it to back-scene, you will still not get the correct impression from these other angles since back-scenes only work properly when viewed face on. The best forced perspective models I have seen control the viewing angle very precisely to a specific point through a proscenium arch. That is not really an option with this layout. Nearly all of us are forced in to difficult compromises due to space On a more general point, I think your buildings and track look really good.

The concrete looks really good

Amazing. Really high quality. Very impressed.

Wow! I have some of these in my kit box but have not got round to using them yet. I will be interested to see the result with the DAS. Does the prototype have a camber?

Brilliant!