Monday, March 8, 2010

Confessions of a scenery wimp

I admit it. I'm deathly afraid of doing scenery. There, I said it.

Layouts 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5 had no real scenery. Oh, I built a few structures. I built a few freight cars for layout 2, and even a scratch built bridge. I've never built mountains, roads, trees, grass, or even ballast (my Dad was responsible for our ballast attempt on layout 1). I've read all kinds of articles and books on the various topics, but it has been a huge struggle for me to start.

Well, here is the first attempt at scenicing the track, with "concrete" ties and ballast:


Still a lot to learn. The ballast surface isn't as smooth as I'd like it (modern class 1 track tends to have remarkably even ballast), the color turned out darker than it started before the glue dried, and the rail side color is brighter than I expected. There are other issues, too, that bug me. I consider it a so-so start but on the positive side I'm now familiar with all these techniques and ready to try again.

I took step-by-step pictures of this process, but given that it didn't turn out as well as I'd like I won't bother posting them. Maybe with my next attempt -- there are a lot of things I'm going to try differently.

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