far right, ron.
1-H7- HOWEVER-
2-THE AS IV
ED GE숙
building model railroad scenery with the experts presented by model railroad or
magazine
with Dave frary, malcolm furlough, john olson, gordon odegaard, bob hayden and
jim hettiger. it wasn't always this way in the beginning there was only this
will show you how to change it into a realistic scene by following the advice
of experts so this can be yours with a little work and practice. scenery is more
than just cosmetics it gives our models a definite time and place it creates a
mood it makes a model into a slice of life and it improves the appearance of
our models but what does scenery look like how can we get it to look like real
life is a course in geology the answer? in paleozoic times three billion
years ago the earth was composed of the seas and large vertical land masses now
in the pre cambrian period the water eroded the vertical land masses 450
million years ago in the order of the period. no you don't have to go back to
school to learn enough about geology to model scenery model railroading is
supposed to be fun but you do need to know enough about how the earth came to
be so you can model it effectively. Dave frary is the author of the kalmbach book
how to build realistic model railroad scenery. I've always thought that
studying something too much can take the fun out of it. geology is not our hobby
model railroading is so we only need to know enough about geology to know how
wind water and gravity affect everything. wind water and gravity move everything
from higher elevations to lower ones. water flows from the tops of mountains
where it fell as rain and snow to the oceans. along the way it picks up and
deposits sand soil rocks and even pieces of trees and vegetation. wind moves loose
sand and soil particles around while gravity moves everything to the lowest
possible level. model railroads differ from the prototype because we like long
tunnels the prototype doesn't. we like long bridges the prototype doesn't like
long bridges. we like high mountains the prototype usually seeks the lowest
possible grade usually water level. usually we lay track before we build the
scenery the prototype has to contend with scenery before the track is laid.
some other things to remember railroad civil engineers try to balance the
amount of dirt they take from a cut with the amount needed for a fill. retaining
walls have to be used if there's a steep slope on a hill made of dirt. now with
this basic information we're ready to move on to planning our scenery. the way
I do it is with a clay model. this clay model is built three quarters of an
inch equals a foot. Xerox paper copy is used of the track plan. strip wood risers
are used to show the track elevations. I use modeling clay to model the scenic
contours. any mistakes in scenery can be solved now before we get on to building
our bench work laying our track and building our real scenery. small wood
blocks can be added to represent buildings. while planning we need to
think of what will be behind the layout and how we can hide the undesirable
elements. that's where a backdrop is invaluable. it's best to plan now before
the track is laid. there'll be more on backdrops later in the program. now back
to the scenery. mountains and rocks add so much to a model scene that we have to
know about them. John Allen couldn't have created these spectacular views on his
Gorean defeated railroad without mountains. notice his use of color. there
are two types of rocks we need to know about. igneous and sedimentary. igneous
rocks were formed by molten lava forced to the earth's surface millions of years
ago. sedimentary rocks were formed by layers of sand and silt that settled to
the bottom of prehistoric oceans. these layers were compressed by their weight
and over long periods of time they were squeezed into shales, slates, limestone
and sandstones that we know today. rocks are not solid. they crack because of
pressures from below. contraction, expansion, the effects of weather and
frost etc. we want our rocks and mountains to have faults, cracks and other
natural imperfections. level ground is not really level. it rolls and undulates
and that's helpful for us hiding our long trains. not every layout has to have
mountains. level ground and rolling hills are a welcome relief from layouts
dominated by strong vertical lines like mountains. under these hills we find rock
but near the surface there are varying levels of clay and dirt. remember that
when it comes time to color the hills we want some clay or dirt to show
through. trees, bushes and weeds need soil and water but they can also be found in
dry deserts sticking out of cracks and mountains and rock cuts. all of this
basic information is important when you're planning your layout. with the
basics under our belts we're ready to begin but how? Malcolm Furlow is known as
one of model railroading's great scenery artists. the first step in building
convincing model railroad scenery is to build up the various scenic forms using
the hard shell method and these are the items that you will need. torn strips of
paper tally, masking tape, a spatula to mix the plaster with, bowl of water, a
bowl to hold the hydrocal. this is wadded up newspaper that we'll use to build up
our initial landforms and this is hydrocal plaster mixed in a mixing bowl.
hydrocal is dehydrated gypsum rock and is available at cement dealers and
building supply yards. okay you want to begin by wadding up these newspaper
forms. just pile them up in an area that you want to build the terrain up in. take
the tape, tape it together, kind of hold it down because this is gonna all be
covered up later with plaster. take an atomizer spray of plain water, wet the
area in the newspaper, the area that you want the plaster to stick to. these torn
sheets of tally are dipped directly into the plaster, wet both sides, kind of drag
it off the sides of the bowl and just begin by laying these forms over. you
don't have to be neat and this is a fun time situation. you macho men that never
got a chance to play in the mud before. gives you a great chance to get your
hands in something really messy. once these things are applied it takes about
a half hour or so for the hard shell itself to set up and then you can begin
detailing it. just drape this on there and blend it in and that's all there is to it.
you've got a rigid base to work from later on and that's hard shell. two other
popular methods are screen wire and styrofoam. screen wire replaces hard
shell as a support. it's harder to work with because the wire could cut and nick
you and things like that. it resists shaping a little bit more than the
newspaper but it gives the same result as a hard shell, a base for realistic
scenery. styrofoam is lighter and requires different working techniques. it
too replaces the hard shell as a support. all the methods look about the same once
the plaster covers them. hey that's beautiful and you can have the same
beauty on your layout. it's not as hard as it looks. there are two ways to do it
carving and casting. John Olson is an expert at model rock work. part of his
job as a theme park creator involves making mountains. after we have the basic
landform topography developed we need to refer to our original plans and see just
where it is we want the specific rock outcroppings to occur. when we get to
this point I like to use two techniques to build my rock work itself. one is this
urethane foam which I carved firsthand and the other is this kind of molding
plaster applied over the basic scenery shell. let's take a closer look at this
urethane foam and see just how we might want to use it. carving it requires only
one or two different knives. I prefer the common kitchen variety because it allows
this kind of a cutting and tearing motion for the rock work itself. a
stainless steel or other steel wire brush which when dragged down the foam
leaves this eroded washed outlook and then a very stiff bristle brush to brush
away all the crumbs and take off the torn edges. now the other kind of rock
work I like to do is as on this piece the basic landform. I like to use three
types of rock work development. one is hand carved and that would be used in
areas such as this tunnel opening. the second area is up in this area here
where you will find this blend the transition between hard rock surfaces
and hard rock surfaces. the third area is such as up here this major mass form is
where we use latex rubber molds. I think this is a good point we can bring
Malcolm in and have him show us how he developed his. what I'm gonna do is show
John how to do these latex molds because obviously he's been a long time carving
these landforms and I could show you how to do it very quick and very easy with
latex rubber molds. now what we're gonna do is make a latex rubber mold off of a
real rock and so you can just find a rock that has sufficient strata. the
material we use to paint onto this rock to make these latex rubber molds is this
material I have here and this material can be purchased at the hobby store and
it is a liquid rubber. you'll need a brush that is disposable nothing that is very
expensive because we're gonna have to toss this brush when we get through using it.
we wet this rock you have to be sure that you get the rock sufficiently
wetted so that this material will flow into the crevices and what you want to
do is paint this material onto the rock in various layers and we're going to
build up these layers letting each layer dry before applying the next. it takes
about 24 hours for this liquid rubber to cure. the third coat apply this gauze
material because that will keep the mold from tearing. as you apply this gauze
here just come back over with this molding compound, this liquid rubber.
the finished molds look something like this. why don't we mix some plaster up
let me get that for you and I want to be sure and check what he's doing here and
make sure he gets a consistency right because you let me know how I'm doing
right yeah I'm gonna make sure that you do it right and John's made sure that
the plaster is in a batter like consistency we spray and wet the mold
with with water and the water helps the plaster in its liquid form flow into all
the crevices of strata what we want to do is make sure that we wet this area
sufficiently for this plaster that we're going to apply it to it here because dry
plaster will readily soak up the moisture from the wet plaster after
anything from five to ten minutes you'll find the plaster starting to set up for
you well enough to where you can apply it to the wall and I test mine by
picking it up and flexing it backwards and see these little cracks here kind of
like the ones in the corners your eye or your eye these little cracks here will
form across the surface that means that it's dry enough or stiff enough to put
onto the wall and we take the mold and simply tilt it up right on up if you
could tilt the mold without the plaster running out then it's ready to go and
it's just perfect now what I'm doing is pressing down the edges of the mold
making sure the plaster doesn't run out kind of like the forms on a concrete
for job what we'll end up with by this technique is a nice outcropping a solid
substantial rock something you won't have to carve on like you do that's right
you're learning aren't you yeah a good thing to do on these molds is kind of
overlap these sections here right here where this goes together so later on it
won't be such a problem in blending the castings together these now have been
sitting for about ten minutes you can see us like peel this away plus a warm
to the touch yeah they do give off heat on curing see how they do stick well
and look at this we carve some of these areas here to exaggerate the strata line
on over to this particular area here and I think what Malcolm saying too when
you're working two formations together go ahead and take the carving technique
and continue some of these things that are happening for one rock to the other
which will provide continuity I take this solution and stipple all about the flat
areas here the thickness isn't so important as much as leaving us a medium
that we can put a little texture into later on at this point we're looking for
the stipple texture that the end of the bristles will give us what we're
simulating with this is the soil or the gravel texture that the normal scenery
around the rock work would have the true you're actually carving a rock mountain
I'm just cleaning up some rough edges I don't want to go to the links that you
went to the carver rock please don't okay okay now that the plaster castings
have dried which takes about 30 40 minutes you want to begin swapping on
the paint to make the thing look like a real rock we have two products we both
prefer they're quite a bit different in their application but they are very
similar in their chemical content Malcolm has these acrylic artists
colors and I use a universal tint or dye that is probably the material that's in
Malcolm's paint to give it its color we're gonna wet the rock face to apply
these water-soluble colors but I use yellow oxide burnt sienna and raw
umber and I just squeeze these colors out on a pallet I work from dark to
light I rip wet the rock surface just slightly apply this this is an India ink
that you can buy artist any ink okay I start just the other way for Malcolm a
little water on the rock of course and then move into the lightest colors and
apply these with the brush fairly unevenly you don't worry about total
coverage okay coming back again with another color burnt sienna in this case
and you can see the layering that's happening where one is covering some of
the white and it's covering some of the previously put on color just take your
brush I use kind of a dry brush method starting with this burnt sienna just
apply it into the air just just brush it on in a random fashion such as this hit
it with the water it will flow into the crevices and rocks where you want it to
go sometimes it's good to wet your brush a little bit with this water just
squirt it right onto your palette here use a little of this yellow you will vary
your colors in here this yellow oxide maybe a little bit down in here just
different areas these universal tints since they don't have a vehicle there's
no binding material in with them you can take water even after they've
apparently set and spray them and notice how you can flood and move them around
the surface the last step in the process I'm showing you requires the water bottle
at hand and a little of the black which is very very around for you it's very
punchy it can be dangerous you can almost make it too dark too quickly take
it straight out of the tube this acrylic white what he's doing is catching just
the very top edges of the rock which stimulates for sunlight that we don't of
course have indoors our model railroad room about all we could do is go on to
our other modules and maybe show you what some of the rock work would look
like in the finished sense once the foliage and vegetation is applied now we
come to the part I like the most turning the terrain into a real-life scene John
Allen was a master at this Dave frary has devised a new method of adding
texture he explains the water-soluble method in his book how to build realistic
model railroad scenery this is ordinary earth colored latex house paint it's the
basic coloring medium for the water-soluble method the water-soluble
method of scenery building allows us to do everything while the plaster paint
and ground cover are wet these are the materials we'll need first earth-colored
latex house paint white flat white house paint brushes acrylic matte medium a
spray bottle to apply the matte medium various colors and textures of ground
foam and artists acrylic tube colors these are used to further change the
shades of earth with the water-soluble method we can build scenery while
everything is wet we can start here with plaster which has just been applied and
is still damp over this we apply latex paint the latex paint colors the plaster
and it also provides an adhesive to hold the ground foam now that we've covered
the wet plaster with earth colored latex paint the next step is to apply ground
foam the way I do it is with a shaker jar this is just an ordinary jar with
some holes punched in the top and the ground foam is sprinkled over the wet
latex paint I'm going to use another color it's a little darker green a way
to apply ground foam to vertical surfaces is called whisking you can put
the ground foam in your hand and actually blow it into the wet paint now
that we have on the basic textures the next thing we want to do is wet down the
ground cover this is so that the ground cover will accept the next layer of foam
this is an ordinary spray bottle with water the water has a little bit of
household detergent added to it about two drops of detergent to 32 ounces of
water now we're going to take a clean brush and move the foam away from the
areas where we don't want it in this case there's some foam that fell onto
the track also going to add some rock texture this is sifted builders sand
this is going to be added along the side of the rail just to vary the color and
to provide a little bit of texture now we have some brown ground foam this is
acrylic matte medium diluted with four parts water that acrylic matte medium is
an artist clear finish we use it here as an adhesive to hold the ground foam in
place
I thoroughly want to saturate the ground foam that's already in place with matte
medium you can keep applying that medium until the foam almost turns white this
is a little coarser green foam and it represents here a nice green grass now
we're going to add several lighter shades of green these are going to be
added to highlight the contour of the land here's how the scenery looks when
it's finished the water soluble way okay so now you've got all this great-looking
terrain with dirt grass and rocks but something is missing
trees weeds and bushes really bring a model theme to life there's probably as
many ways to make a model tree as there are trees in the real world what we're
going to show you here are some of the commercially available products such as
these in front of me and also a range of natural materials one of my favorite
kinds of trees are these pine trees that I use quite a bit on my own railroading
California the first step is getting a hold of a piece of balsa wood such as
this from the hobby shop it's roughly a half inch square by 8 to 10 inches long
I use my own pocket knife and begin simply whittling the shape once we've
finished carving the trunk it'll have a uneven undulating surface on it such as
this which is a little bit of an advantage for us because it doesn't look
quite so machine-made the next step is to add the texture to the bark and I
start with a piece of 40 grit common garnet sandpaper at this point we're
ready for some paint and use common Liquitex acrylic artist colors and a
little bit of water flow on almost in a stain manner so that you can a little
transparency you can see through the paint you get some of the white of the
balsa wood is showing through you can see how keeping the trunk wet allows the
paint to flow and stain notice the color variations that occur within the trunk
and these are from uneven application of the paint the next step is the addition
of the branches and I prefer a variety of floral decoration called caspia I'll
use a little white blue and a needle in a stick to do the drill work grabbing a
piece of caspia with the tweezers dip it in the glue and insert it in the hole
and break off anything that seems to either stick out too far or have a curl
or a twist as it doesn't look natural the next step once all the glue is dried
and all the pieces are securely attached is to take some paint and I prefer this
HACTRAS earth tone and spray across all of these little buds the one thing we
don't want to do is spray paint on our previously painted trunk however the
next step is to add the greenery the what would we even call the pine needles I
use a couple of products here one is the testers bell coat flattening agent as
the adhesive and the second is ground rubber and the way this is put on is by
spraying the dull coat onto the top side of all the little branchlets and then we
take the tree and rotate it slowly as we sprinkle over the ground sponge I think
you can see the range of color size and age lends a lot of interest to a scale
model theme there's also an easy and effective way to make some nice low
shrubbery growth bushes and whatnot I like to start by using some of the
commercially available lichen we're gonna treat this as the basic tree
structure and armature and we're gonna paint it to give it a little depth a
little shadow this now becomes the armature upon which we're gonna put the
greenery and let me put a good coat of gel coat on here and then as before
working over the container from which it came so we don't lose too much
material and simply sprinkle on in this case the darker of the two greens shake
the piece off a bit apply a second coating of the adhesive and then working
from the lighter maybe a little more yellow shade just drop enough on that we
pick up a little sunshine on the tops of the leaves and on their own they work
out pretty well as little tree or little bushes rather chaparral type growth but
also if you can find a tree armature such as this piece of stage brush that I
use you can use it by placing these bushes that we've made onto the armature
and gluing them on generally it's white glue we can make a pretty effective
looking oak tree but something is still missing it looks better than before it
looks like something we've seen yet it's not quite right there's no detail
longtime model railroad or Gordon Odegaard has made detailing one of his
special interest the late Lynn Wescott editor of model
railroad magazine used to drink a lot of tea and throw the cold remains onto his
scenery as a basic color
tea really isn't a good method of covering track and roadbed but let me
show you a method that is model railroaders have always thought of the
track ballast as part of track laying but really it's a scenic element and the
finishing of the ballast ties the track and terrain together into a complete
scene to do this you'll need a spray can of flat brown paint an airbrush rust
grimy black paints ballast paper cups 3x5 file cards a soda straw a brush matte
medium for a fixative a spray bottle full of water with detergent an eyedropper
and an abrasive block for cleaning the track as you can see we've already
colored this area so we have a dry area to work the ballast into but I'm going
to show you what we did to prepare it first we took a spray can of flat brown
paint and we sprayed the entire track and roadbed next take an airbrush from a
very low angle we airbrushed rails a rust color you don't have an airbrush you
can also use a regular brush just go along it like this and give it a rust
color now we're ready to apply the ballast we put it into a plastic cup and
we just gently go along spread it like this not too heavy just a light even
coat now we use a brush where we can level out the ballast clear the tops of
the ties so they show through it's important that you get enough ballast to
cover the edges of the ballast line and the roadbed it's important to keep the
points and the throw bar of the turnouts free of ballast to do this place a white
card against the rail to keep the ballast from getting in there if you
should get some ballast in the points you can blow it out with a soda straw
like this when all the ballast is in place we need to wet it with water and a
little detergent and a spray bottle so that it will accept the matte medium that
binds it in place I use an eyedropper to apply it just walk along it apply matte
medium all areas you'll notice in this slide of a real railroad right away
there's a difference between the main and siding tracks to duplicate this on a
model railroad I use an airbrush and the grunt thinned grimy black mixture of
paint I begin by spraying the track that is going to be the siding so that is a
little darker in shade than the main line so if there's a difference in the
coloration the bright rust colored on the main line and a little darker shade
on the rails now that we have the area completely colored we need to add some
details you can put in a switch stand here or a power switch machine we also
have a relay case a battery cellar telephone box a speed sign for the train
crews to see and a line pole to carry the signals for the electronic equipment
now that the track looks better we need to add detail to give our scene some
light included in our detailing materials are automobiles figures
railway signaling equipment line poles electric light poles animals work trucks
rails ties and signs here's a model railroad scene as you normally see it
when it's considered finished it has all the elements of a model railroad the
structures the roads the track the ballast and the scenery but we need
something to bring it to life this is the same area we started with but all
the details have been added to give some meaning and purpose to the area
remember you can move the elements around until they are in some logical
arrangement
now if you're modeling a desert you're done with a basic scenery if you're
modeling something other than a desert you still have more fun in store no let's
not get that chemical we make our water with plaster plastic paint and dye Bob
Hayden is one half of the friary Hayden team of HON two-and-a-half fame and a
recognized expert at making water water is almost always a conspicuous feature
of the landscape where railroads run so you'll need to know how to model water
effectively to make your layout scenery look good this water which is neither
wet nor deep does have the two features that model railroad water need it
reflects things and it looks good from above which is your normal point of view
these are the tools and materials you'll need to build high gloss epoxy water on
your layout first some paint for the bottom of the waterway in this case
polyester earth and polyester I mean black next some twigs and old tires to
detail the bottom of the water a roll of masking tape to make a dam along the edge
of the railroad to keep the water from running onto the floor some paper cups
for measuring a two-part epoxy material this one is called in virotex which is
available in craft shops and used for making bar tops and coffee tables a
clean container in which to mix the epoxy some tongue depressors to mix it
with a propane gas torch to get the bubbles out of the epoxy after it's
poured and some inexpensive brushes to manipulate the epoxy with once it has
been poured what I've done here in this river scene is bring the scenery and the
color and the texture down to the banks of the river with standard scenic
techniques that done I place the masking tape dam across the edge of the railroad
where the water runs off and poured in a soupy mixture of plaster to make a
perfectly flat scenic base after that it dried overnight I'm ready to paint the
scenic base with two colors black for where the water is deep and tan for
where the banks fade into the deeper water and the color that you start with
is black this is polyester grimy black paint the next job is to change the
airbrush color to an earth color and feather the banks down into the deep
parts of the river what you have is dark murky depths here and the water fades
off and finally comes ashore and you've got the bank the first step is to mix
the epoxy to do that we take equal parts of the resin and the hardener and pour
them into a mixing container stir the mixture vigorously with a tongue
depressor or some other kind of clean stirring stick you can see here that the
details such as a log and an old tire have been added to the riverbed and the
glue allowed to dry now we can pour the resin
and once the residence in the riverbed then you need one of these inexpensive
brushes to move it up to the banks of the scenery and around the details one of
the interesting properties of this particular material is that if you pass
a blowtorch flame over it while it's drying all the bubbles will disappear
and there you have it that stuff shouldn't be there it ruins the mood and
illusion we're trying to create we need something to hide it all at this point
let's begin with building our backdrop I like to prepare the backdrop backing
board in this case quarter inch masonite paneling with a good coat probably two
or three coats if necessary of flat white latex paint this will give us a
little vibrant some action for the blue which we're going to put on next to pick
up light and bounce back I'm going to use a two inch medium bristle brush and
go for a complete coverage at the top end and starting from the bottom then we
work towards the other blue that we just left darker blue here will represent the
uppermost part of the backdrop the light blue will give us the distance in the
haze for the bottom end and work it up to about two-thirds of the way up then
take the darker brush a little fresh paint and work it backwards down towards
the light again but this degree of streaking between the two different
shades is really what I'm trying to achieve now once these two colors dry
completely so go ahead and apply what I do in my next step which is the printed
cutout backing paper this one which has the sky already printed and part of the
main piece is one that can be used straight as it comes out of the box
whereas I prefer another type a little more frequently which is designed such
that all of the two-dimensional scenery on it is made to be cut freehand from
the rest of the backing paper once I found the proper location for the piece
of artwork itself that is looking in at the scene from the three-dimensional
side of the model and locating so the proper sight line is established I mark
it on the backing board and then move the foreground scenery away pick up the
backdrop and fold it back over itself now once this is flipped back over later
with the glue on it it's in the exact position we would like to have it in its
finished form I use common rubber cement now there's two ways to apply this one
is immediately with both surfaces still wet and what you'll have is a somewhat
temporary bond so if you ever want to remove it and reposition it it'll be
easy to do or let the fumes evaporate for a few moments and once both surfaces
are dry to the touch flip it on over and you'll have a more permanent bond all of
a sudden we have a two-dimensional city now the cleanup process and it really is
more important to let this dry more than we have here simply involves taking a
cement rubber cement pickup it's a piece of gum rubber that as it's pulled across
the cement surface will pick up and tease loose all the free pieces of the
excess gum rubber this is the back alley and warp extension for my Jerome with
Southwestern Railroad it's an industrial area that has a backdrop
incorporating many of the features that we've just discussed previously I'm
going to show you two things on this small segment pastel artists chalks are
the simplest method for making smoke on backdrops the beauty of using chalk
isn't that they're so darn simple all you do is simply approach the top of the
stack in a scrubbing motion move away as the chalk wears off it makes a nicer and
nicer trail often many of the occurrences on the two-dimensional
backdrops can be useful for our 3d foreground scenery and in this case
you'll see that as we move the train aside a three-dimensional road in the
foreground leads right into a two-dimensional road the background if
in fact I haven't wanted to take advantage of this occurrence and wanted
to block out the background road I simply could have inserted a 3d low
relief building such as this bar relief to hide that from our view a backdrop
creates distance and illusion we have to do both if we're going to be effective
in creating a railroad in our limited spaces
that will do for a simple layout with no serious scenic problems few layouts are
so lucky I'll bet your layout has at least one of the following problems if
not more don't have enough space you say I'm sure you've heard people say it was
done with mirrors well that's exactly how Malcolm furlough creates some of his
illusions you know one way that you can expand the space on your land is with
the use of backdrops and another way that you can do that very effectively and
it's a really a neat trick that I've learned on the Rio Chamas with the use
of mirrors and you can see as I place this mirror at right angles to the track
it just seems to draw the track around and greatly expands the depth you want
to make sure when you place your mirrors in this situation that you always place
the mirror where it is not viewed by the viewer in the aisle way that is to say
where his image is not reflected back to himself this mirror and the line that it
creates right here can be blended in a little bit more effectively by the use
of paints and you can paint directly onto the mirror surface you can actually
paint on pine trees in this area in here to help draw the viewers eye away from
the parting line to have the top portion of this mirror cutouts can be done out
of cardstock and airbrushed in feathered into the mirror and it's hard to tell
where the mirror stops and the scenery starts and it's real easy to do and there
you have it many layouts reach this stage of scenic development a lot of
nice details but no pizzazz John Olson takes his scenes a step beyond scenic
blending is a combination of techniques and processes that we often use to bring
uniformity and reality into our model scene what I would like to do is show
you a few examples here on my mule shoes meadow diorama on just how I've taken
these aging and weathering techniques and processes and apply them over
different areas to bring together harmony within the scene believability
you'll find all of these stains from oil cinders and ashes on the track they also
continue on out onto the planks of the turntable and then of course across the
turntable on into the engine house well what we try to do is tie together that
heavy servicing look in one area and then also balance away from it up here
into the ash pit a grayer drier look from the extinguished fires and then
across the track and up over here to the sanding tower we'll find how we dropped
our other effect earlier and now added the spilled sand and possibly water
stains while the tinder was sitting there while taking on sand moving on up
here into this water tank you'll notice that the rust and accumulations of
oxides have indicated to us another look other than the earlier previous
industrial spillage the same technique and the way we've blended it in with
the scenery would then apply over here to the engine house roof with all the
soot grime and grease that would accumulate as well as the birds and
their ever-present droppings all of this and these few examples tend to serve to
show us how it is that we bring together the entire scene with an overall
uniformity a problem too many of us have is track on top of track usually the
solution is a retaining wall or a sheer cliff but Dave Prairie has a novel
answer stack track doesn't look right it destroys the feeling that there are
great distances separating the route our train is taking to further expand this
distance I tried building the edge of a forest to hide this track this is the
edge of the forest effect it's created by gluing lichen over twigs these twigs
were cut in the backyard and they were brought in and glued into the scenery
with white glue the lichen is glued over the twigs to create the illusion of a
forest many different colors of lichen are used here to look like many
different tree tops lichen by the way is a fungus growth that's found in the
Arctic regions of the world it's sometimes called reindeer moss by putting
the forest between the two tracks we effectively separate the lower track
from the upper track creating an illusion of great distance between the
tracks with homes getting smaller and layout space diminishing a new solution
has emerged two level layouts this presents another problem how to reach
the second level Jim Hediger found the answer for his Ohio Southern with the
double deck type of layout construction the major portion of the layout is built
like two complete dioramas that are stacked one on top of the other the only
portion of the layout where the two actually join is in this particular
corner where we use the helix to come within a mountain to connect the two
levels so trains can operate from one end of the system to the other now the
highest level of the layout is 20 inches above the lowest level which is down
where the freight yard is below me here the two levels are connected with a 30
inch radius helix that takes the trains in a stack pattern down through the
mountain until they reappear on the lower level through the tunnel portal
this particular arrangement is not very realistic because the prototype trains
do not go down through a mountain by going around four times so this
particular section of the layout is completely concealed with scenery so that
in the lower yard all you see is the hillside now eventually the screen wire
in the middle here will be entirely covered with the rough coat house plaster
like we have on each side here and then that rough coat plaster will be finished
with the usual rock castings and carved rock and then the ground foam and other
texture material another problem every layout has is cramped quarters Malcolm
furlough knows how to make the most of every available inch you know one of the
real problem areas in constructing a model railroad is that you never seem
to have enough room for the thing and the way that I like that problem on my
home layout the Denver real Chama Western is I chose to build upward and
downward rather than outward you can see that the scenery stretches above eye
level and travels down to the floor the structures are even built along the
canyon walls to achieve that space and depth the track as it spirals around
climbs along the canyon walls it draws the eye inward into the depth of the
canyon once again making and having the viewer feel like he's in a larger area
than he really is as the mountains rise above eye level and even soar over his
head he has an actual feeling of being in a canyon here too the structures are
built along the canyon wall and the bridges and the foliage seem to add that
depth to the scene here we see the scenery as it stretches upward above the
viewer's eye all the way up to the scenery in the lighting balance the arch
bridges in here help to soften the ruggedness of the scenery and once again
it helps achieve a sense of depth and drama to the canyon area are you
convinced now that scenery is not that hard and that it's a lot of fun scenery
is something all of us can do it's like everything else in model we're voting
you can do as much or as little as you like but above all it must be fun and it
will be when your friends marvel at what a scenery expert you've become your
railroad can look like this with a little work and practice
more information on creating a miniature world for your layout be sure to read
these two combo books on scenery and watch for our next video cassette on
scenery