Glorious Steam - Diorama 1

[Mulgabill]

What a difference those fence posts make! So evocative of the area, but not

a detail I would have remembered, until your pic reminded me.

 

The undergrowth is looking both verdant, and understated.

 

Another fine lesson Jeff. Keep it up.

 

TONY

[Physicsman]

12 minutes ago, Mulgabill said:

What a difference those fence posts make! So evocative of the area, but not

a detail I would have remembered, until your pic reminded me.

 

The undergrowth is looking both verdant, and understated.

 

Another fine lesson Jeff. Keep it up.

 

TONY

 

Here you are, Tony - the slightly "lean-to" posts up against the wall. I thought one piece of wire was sufficient to give the idea!

 

[Physicsman]

I thought I might get some loco pics done today. No chance. There's a lot more to do than I'd thought through and, because things have to be done in a certain order, it's taking "ages" (almost 2 weeks.....haha).

 

A couple of pics from today. The fence behind the wall is complete, more track weathering (barely noticeable) and I've started "vegetating" the opposite embankment.

 

 

[Ramrig]

More top work there Jeff. That diorama is looking very impressive. Looking forward to seeing your locos and rolling stock posed on the track. 

[Physicsman]

7 minutes ago, Ramrig said:

More top work there Jeff. That diorama is looking very impressive. Looking forward to seeing your locos and rolling stock posed on the track. 

 

Steve, I know that you REALLY don't like receiving "Likes" - hahahahahaha - so I gave you one anyway.

[Rowsley17D]

The ballast weathering is quite noticeable, Jeff and it reminds me I haven't done it to my track yet nor finished painting the rail sides!

[Physicsman]

The ballast is still wet from the fourth or fifth wash, so it's emphasised on the pics.

 

I've done 4 base washes of a grey mix, now starting to add-in some raw and burnt umber for a rusty emphasis. I could mix stronger acrylic washes but I'd rather be careful.

[Physicsman]

Update....

 

Well, I wasn't going to put anything else on here until tomorrow, but what the hell.

 

The first pic shows the kind of vegetation found on some cuttings on the S&C - very dense and colourful. My "colour guru", Mr Steve Gibbons aka Ramrig is about to post me a supply of weed-making stuff. No, not THAT kind of weed....some colours to create infestations of eg. buddleia. There'll be smoke rising from the Bunker and it won't be for a new Pope! Don't tell the police and, btw, I don't smoke...

 

 

Pics 2 and 3 - how it looks today. Bit more walling tomorrow on the left corner, then it's TREE making - my first attempts with wire. Should be fun!

 

 

 

 

[Peter Kazmierczak]

Jeff, presumably you're going to have a removeable backscene of some kind, which you can fix to either side of the diorama when taking photos.

[Physicsman]

1 minute ago, Peter Kazmierczak said:

Jeff, presumably you're going to have a removeable backscene of some kind, which you can fix to either side of the diorama when taking photos.

 

Yes, Peter - that is exactly a part of the plan. It will fit on either side and allow pics to be taken both ways. Just a very basic ground and sky/cloud job.

 

 

[Ramrig]

  oh, not that sort of weed. 

[Ramrig]

Double post

Edited January 27, 2022 by Ramrig

[Physicsman]

2 minutes ago, Ramrig said:

  oh, not that sort of weed. 

 

I feel a sense of euphoria and out-of-worldliness....a touch of late 1960s Pink Floyd and the contents of that packet you sent me....

 

.....works wonders for the modelling. Now where did I put my DVD of "girl on a Motorcycle"??!!

 

[Physicsman]

Update:

 

Vegetation is 99% complete, I'm just waiting for delivery of some "flower petals" to create a bit of colour, as mentioned above.

 

Track has been reasonably weathered - there's a brownish tint that doesn't show in the photos.

 

Walling is now finished - until it starts again for HGS in 3-4 months time.

 

So attention has turned to a project that will be ongoing for quite some time - tree making.

 

The diorama will need 2 or 3 trees behind the wall area, and these will be around 8-12cm high on the left side (2 trees) and another, maybe 8cm high in the middle-right (trees will be built to an approximate size and fitted using the "plonk and judge it" principle!)

 

I'll build a couple of smaller specimens - maybe 3-6cm - which will serve as tree/bushes on the front embankment.

 

2 of these have already been built and are at the wire-wound/latex-rubber-coated stage. I'll move on to priming, attaching foliage and flock in the next few days. In the meantime, here's some pics. This is a 16cm (scale 40 feet) tree - too large for the diorama, but built for the station area......

 

1) and 2) Tree in wire wound state: I used 28AWG wire for this and it took about 3 hours to get to this state.

 

 

 

3) Tree after 5 coatings of latex rubber. The pic shows the tree sat on top of the oil heater I use in the bunker - this shortens the curing time of the latex to around 20-30 minutes.

 

 

4) After 5 straight latex coatings the tree was ok for paint priming. But the latex surface is a bit smooth for tree bark. So a bit of sandpaper was used to produce a quantity of fine bark dust, which was mixed into some latex and painted onto the trunk and thicker branches.

 

 

5) This is what it looks like when the wet latex/cork mix has set. The cork is evident. It's the texture that matters here, when primed with spray paint the colour will be a uniform grey - ready for top acrylic coats...

 

 

Hope that isn't telling everyone how to suck eggs!

 

Jeff

Edited January 31, 2022 by Physicsman

[Physicsman]

Here's the 12cm "specimen" that will sit at the left rear side of the wall. It's been covered in latex and surface-roughened, but those stages aren't shown here.

 

 

[Rowsley17D]

Looking good, Jeff. Very convincing tree armature. What's the latex you have used?

[peach james]

So, one aspect that I have done is to put the trees onto pins in the landscape, rather than planting them with roots.  One aspect of this is that you can kind of "bed" them into the grass if they are semi permanent, but if you ever need to remove them to move the layout around, it is possible and all one is left with is a series of pins in the landscape,  and a bunch of trees to store somewhere...

It's a really quiet job to glue tufts onto the branches- it takes for ever to do.  Kind of like welding ties on the Canadian Puget Sound (which is what I'm doing this winter...section #7 of the curves is tacked right now down below)

James

[Physicsman]

James, Jonathan - I did reply but my comments were lost by the system after submission.

 

Off to get my tea, will reply again when I get back!!

[Physicsman]

James, fully agree about the spigot/pin thing. I'll be storing the dioramas in the area under the viaduct and, although there's plenty of clearance for the basic boards, the trees will have to be removed before stashing them there.

 

Although I intend to make quite a number of trees, the ones from the diorama can be plonked elsewhere when the diorama isn't in use.

 

As for the foliage issue. These are the first wire-wound trees I've made and I'm experimenting to develop a technique I'm happy with. I'm going to try both sea foam and WS foliage (not on the same tree!!) to see which, if any, I prefer as the base for the top coarse flock/leaf coverage. The trials will be reported on here.

 

 

Jonathan, here's the Amazon link to the latex I used. It's from a company called Trustleaf:

 

Trustleaf 1 litre Liquid Latex Dipping Rubber for Mould Making/Casting/SFX : Amazon.co.uk: Home & Kitchen

 

Jeff

 

Edit: For some reason the hyperlink didn't copy across - but the details above will guide you to the product.

 

 

Edited January 31, 2022 by Physicsman
Spelling correction

[Physicsman]

Here's a couple of pics showing the approximate positioning of trees on the diorama. 

 

2 or 3 smaller, "shrubby" constructions will be added. There are also 3 telegraph poles to go onto the right-hand embankment.

 

 

[Physicsman]

A couple of cropped pics from today which, by chance, show the "new variety" of walling better than those I've posted before.

 

 

Edited February 3, 2022 by Physicsman

[Ramrig]

Those two pictures really show off the new type of walling to great effect Jeff. No going back to the old style anymore 

[Physicsman]

51 minutes ago, Ramrig said:

Those two pictures really show off the new type of walling to great effect Jeff. No going back to the old style anymore 

 

Cheers Steve.

 

I agree with your comment. Unfortunately, the new stuff makes me VERY dissatisfied with the walling on GH. No way can I replace that, though the idea will never go away!

 

And the new walling takes me twice as long as the old stuff. Umm.

[Reorte]

16 hours ago, Physicsman said:

And the new walling takes me twice as long as the old stuff. Umm.

But it really does look very good. I'm not sure how much of the variety of shading is the lighting and how much the painting but it's effective.

 

Where you've got the fencing maybe the odd little tuft of wool would be a neat little detail... Nah, I'm just getting pedantic, it would be almost invisible at 4mm scale.

[teaky]

1 minute ago, Reorte said:

Where you've got the fencing maybe the odd little tuft of wool would be a neat little detail... Nah, I'm just getting pedantic, it would be almost invisible at 4mm scale.

Oh dear.  You've said it now!  I bet Jeff's already searching for suitable scale tuft material.