Neil's layout

QUOTE (neil_s_wood @ 26 Sep 2008, 03:46) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>Scottish section

Under and behind the bridges.
A general tidy up and a bit of weathering. Lose some of the car's. Too many doesn' look right. More trees bushes.

On summer weekends the Fife coast is rammed with cars, many parked as yours. Fewer would give the allusion of a more sleepy place.
It looks great, Neil, and many thanks for the pics.

mal

Hi Neil,

Looks good i always enjoy a tour round the layout in pictures, in the beach scene the water looks superb i can almost smell the sea air and feel the breeze i would like to know how you created the water effect.

How big is the layout overall .....

Looks like a magnificent layout in progress Thank you so much for sharing the pictures with us!

QUOTE (Purley Oaks @ 26 Sep 2008, 17:11) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>On summer weekends the Fife coast is rammed with cars, many parked as yours. Fewer would give the allusion of a more sleepy place.
It looks great, Neil, and many thanks for the pics.

mal
Yes you're right Mal, Largo, which the above picture is based on, is absolutely chockers in Summer. Good point.

QUOTE Neil, how have you calculated the track separation distance on the curved viaduct? Is it standard or slightly larger?

I made it slightly larger as I don't just run UK outline. I have some large US loco's too.

QUOTE Hi Neil,

Looks good i always enjoy a tour round the layout in pictures, in the beach scene the water looks superb i can almost smell the sea air and feel the breeze i would like to know how you created the water effect.

How big is the layout overall .....

Water is epoxy resin over a painted base. The layout is 3 metres by 5.

The weather has improved a bit so I am now at the point where I can start plastering again. This may be the next thing I do.

Very good, Nice collection of locomotives.

I must say I think Neil has done particularly well with the harbour scene.

Even so, he has done small (and sometimes bigger!) improvements every time I visit.

QUOTE (TimP @ 28 Sep 2008, 06:01) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>The very first shot of the harbour is absolutely excellent - wish I had that talent.

Well Done

Tim

Yes a very nice piccy of the harbor.

The layout looks great mate.

Thanks guys.

I had hoped to get a bit further with my layout yesterday but I ended up repairing a broken connection to a section of track and adjust a point where there the Hornby Gresly coaches tend to derail (well the Buffet and Sleeper coaches do).

I did get a delivery from Germany yesterday, always a good thing, and got two of those Trix torpedo ladle cars for transporting molten metal. Very nice. Ended up have to do some maintenance on the Taurus which will pull them though.

I also got some Preiser railway maintenance people and Britsh Railways staff so I can do a little scene in the station area.

So other than a first coat of brown pain and some rock like washes to the plaster I didn't get very far. Will have another go tommorow.

Continuing on from the "on my workbench thread" the picture below is the first instalation of the cliff face to see how it looks.



I then put a pile of grey pigmented plaster at the bottom to represent a pile of scree. Sceneic s were added to the top too.



I will continue the bridge wall on the right angled bit but will start a fence after that to maximise visibility of the cliff face. So this is how it looks at the moment. I have still to properly scenic this bit I may also do more work on the cliff to make it a bit darker in some areas. In fact I will as it has lightened up a bit since I applied the wash.





I also did a couple of other bit round the back of my layout which will all ultimately connect up and form one large Highland scene.

I have been working on the back section of my layout. I wanted to create a Scottish Highland scene reminiscint of the Highland Mainline or the route from Inverness to Kyle of Loch alsh. I have spent hours watching these trackside DVD's looking at the plants and topography along the line to get it right. However one fundamental integral part has been a strugle; the backdrop. Recently I decided to do all sky backdrops however I really wanted a decent picture of a Highland scene. I have some saved on computer that I have been using for a while however the colour match between the sections was never brilliant. I had to split them into sections due to the length and the ability to get access to a printer which could print on a sheet of paper two metres long. The lack of a sheet of paper two metres long was also a contributing factor. So this has now been resolved. I recently bought a laser printer which has given me a perfect print and the sky matches perfectly on all print offs. I did have a couple of slight mismatchs, however nothing that the odd Birch tree or Scots Pine couldn't disguise. This the backdrop along it's entire length.



Looking closer the joins are not readily visible.



This is the view from the left hand side where the rocky cliff face conceals the join between two sections. It has just been ballasted yesterday so I am waiting on it drying to tidy it up and weather it.



This shot shows both sides of the cutting. The side on the right can wait till later as it is not able to be seen.



This shot shows the right hand side of the backdrop.



Up until I bought the laser printer I had been making Birch trees, Scots Pine, Gorse and other track side plants to go on this section. The Birch trees are Sea Moss which has been painted to look like Birch bark. The darker Anita Decor foliage does well for the leaves. So that is fairly easy. The Scots Pine was more of a pain. A while back I bought a bunch of handmade trees of the twisted wire variety. The trunk was acceptable however the foliage was atrocious. There were flecks of dayglo green flock in amongst the foam leaves. To turn these into Scots Pine I had to cut off the lower branches as Scots Pine branches usually start pretty high off the ground. I had to do a bit of reshaping of the branches. Then I had to pick off all the original foliage. I then used Heki Fir foliage which is a nice dark green colour as the Pine foliage and the results look pretty good.



Gorse as covered before is just clumps of Busch foliage.

There is also a lot of grass along the trackside so I have been using various colours to get the late summer look right. I have used a blend of several grass types to get an accurate look as there is always dried and fresh grass. I still have to do more to this to get a late summer look to the grass. I will dry brush a blend of yellow and white paint to it till I get the look I'm after.



I have used Silflor extensively here. Several different types have been used to match the backdrop.



Although the backdrop is only two inches horizontally from the track I have tried to make this look further by comressing several definable layers into that area. First there is the grass, then the Silflor, the fence, then a different colour of Silflor. Trees too and bushes add to what is really a very small area and help make it look bigger.



I still have to do more to this section. I have ordered point rodding so that I can detail the points on this section. I will add other trackside embelishments too to get this section as accurate as possible. I also got a call today saying that the ferns I ordered in February have arrived in the shop so I can pick these up on Thursday when I go back to work. I am also going to make those purple plants that flower along the side of the railway tracks that I don't know the name of. I have figured out what I need to do. I just need some purple paint for the flower part.

Here are some more shots I took of the backdrop. It is interesting that a slight sheen has come up in the pictures. I didn't use flash or have a particularly bright light on them. I suppose it must have been the sheen of the paper.