Will Vale

Excellent post title - knew who it would be before I saw the username I really like these collections of bits - they all look so professional, and it's obvious, as James says, that it's going to be something special when it's all together. Home in time for Christmas?

Great stuff as ever Dave. I think the cabling is worthwhile even in 2mm - your track work is so good that it stands really close-up photography, and then the small details really shine. It must be insanely fiddly in that scale though - I used nylon monofilament in 4mm and that was bad enough - trying to thread it into things and then stick it down was very bad for my sanity Will

When I was a teenager I repainted an N-scale VW bus in the orange and white of the one we had when I was at primary school - I still have it somewhere I think. I haven't found either of the cars I've owned myself in 1:76 - a Golf Mk. II Driver and a Spitfire Mk. IV. I'm keeping my eyes open though...

This keeps getting better, serves me right for not looking often enough! There's a strong sense of the sea, and wide open spaces in this layout, particularly in the second-to-last shot. Great composition, lighting and silhouettes - post it in the "How realistic?" thread!

I know me-too posts are out of fashion, but this keeps getting better just when it looks like it can't. Love the stacked exposures and the madness evident in the signals! Will

That looks really good - must have been very difficult to do. I like the period where BR steam locos weren't afraid to show a pipe here and there

Very neat! I think those are the same magnets I'm using for my Sprat + Winkles - I had no idea they could be sited like that for Kadees. If/when I get back to On30 I'll definitely try your way.

Eyes half closed works for me - I think it's a great way to present a small terminus like this.

Thanks Halfwit (and Mrs. Halfwit) - I have another 20-odd on my bench which I'm hoping to use to thicken and extend what I have. I'm not sure what to do about balancing the leaves and heads - maybe I can tweak my gluing process or something?

Looking at the colours I have, I *think* what I'm mostly using is Woodland Scenics - this pack has four small bags of very fine and quite granular scatter in red/white/yellow/orange - it feels different to ground foam. They do other colours too, and Noch do something similar. For the rosebay willowherb I used a bag of lurid pink I picked up in a bargain bin. Made by Jordan, it might be this one? If you start with something paler than you need, it's fairly easy to tint it with ink or paint washes, but going the other way is difficult - drybrushing tends to knock the scatter off.

I wish I'd taken some reference photos in 2003 - that's the last time we were in the UK in summertime! It doesn't seem to grow in NZ much (or at all?) certainly I haven't seen it . Luckily it's pretty enough that there are plenty of pics on Flickr. I really don't know how I got pink and purple so mixed up, that was just stupid

Thanks for the kind words, much appreciated as ever Mikkel, the cow parsley is right at the front of the layout - I don't think it's actually going to be a problem for an exhibition viewer unless they put their nose in it - when I catch it out of the corner of my eye I rather like it. It's more in the close-up pictures that it doesn't hold up. I'm thinking that it might be possible to do something better using fine non-stranded wire, with 3 or 4 pieces bound together and used as stalks? Then you wouldn't see the spirals and it might be easier to get the straight stalks/angle bends that the real plant has. The downside would be that it'd be harder to create the flower heads - at the moment I'm splaying the last 1-1.5mm of the wire strands which gives the matte medium something to cling to. I also nicked a load of my wife's dressmaking pins, and I was going to try spraying those and flocking the heads, either as daffodils or possibly to thicken the cow parsley patch a bit. I think your idea of making that bank bushier is a good one, I'm holding off at the moment since I need to do more water pours first, but I will come back to it with that in mind next week hopefully. Thanks! Jon, I'm hoping that the buddleja (I stand corrected!) can be made the same way as the willowherb heads, only with e.g. brass wire which will take the necessary droopy bend. I'm not sure about the bigger leaves though, and I haven't though about the shrubby bit - sea moss and scatter, maybe?

More amazing-looking stuff, keep it coming. I didn't realise you could make springy springs from brass or copper - I would have thought they wouldn't spring back owing to the metal being ductile/malleable, but that clearly isn't the case. I think I'll have to read The New Science of Strong Materials again...

I couldn't let it lie, and having deforested the area with tweezers, I made these while waiting for my daughter to eat her tea - the benefits of being a kitchen table modeller I'm reasonably confident they're an improvement in appearance, I just hope I don't accidentally crush them since the stems are just dried grass out of a Hornby packet. I was surprised in the close-up pics that the Jordan scatter I used for the flowers actually looks like petals - not that it's accurate or anything, since these are heads with many flowers rather than large blooms, but it's in the right area. The colour was a bit bright so I tweaked is with blue wash at the bottom, and drybrushed white at the top.

I shouldn't really be doing these, I should be doing more important things like weathering more track - but these were fun: This is supposed to be cow parsley, made from twisted wire, green paint and white scatter. Below is rosebay willowherb from brush bristles, static grass, lilac scatter and more paint. I *nearly* didn't post the pics, because I was a bit let down when I saw the close ups - I was quite excited about the individual plants before planting them. In the end I thought it was better to show something in progress and hopefully get some tips to improve things, plus it's a good alternative to sulking It's also a good demonstration of how useful close-up photography is for making you raise your game, since I think they look OK from the mythical normal viewing distance. What I don't like are the usual give aways - you can see the wire the cow parsley is made from, and the brush bristles I used for the rosebay willowherb are mostly too thick. I did some experiments with Hornby's field grass and that was much finer, but I was worried it would break if I breathed on it! I'm also not entirely sure about the colour of the rosebay willowherb - I remember it being pink when I was little, and I thought when I looked at pictures last night that it was purple, but I must have been dreaming or confused or something - looking at pictures again today: pink. Weird. I think I'll pull up and redo this one, although I need to make a few buddleia bushes as well and I might be able to re-use the stalks. So (apart from the colour) what do you all reckon - would it be better not to have them, because they give away the model-ness more than just static grass and sea foam, can they be fixed, or are they OK as they are? I should add that any fixes will probably have to wait until I've done some of the more important layout-finishing jobs, but I do want to come back to these when I get the chance.

Clever stuff The barrier tape is very neat work - what did you use to make it? Will

That looks excellent, nice to see a different approach to exhibition presentation although I'd be a bit scared about stability. Maybe you could have a weighted pedestal and cantilever the board and fiddle yard on opposite sides of that, giving you lots of airiness, but it would need nerves of steel.

Sorry this is so late, but what a brilliant result - its wonderfully neat, believable work and sets off the locos to perfection. What a great thing to have on your shelf! I think "the ballasting is nigh-on perfect" is probably what you meant to say - it's really that good Like the fishplates too - I've thus far been too chicken to try and fit the etched ones I bought.

Thanks for the compliment and sorry I got the names mixed up - there is also a member whose username is "Ben Alder", although I think his real name is Richard? Very confusing. I can't even work out which post/entry I was looking at when I got the tip, but I'll take your word for it Are you the Ben Ando from Model Rail? I've been really enjoying the modern wagon articles.