The Little Rock Line

[Philip H]

There's also this:

http://www.modeltrainstuff.com/Railway-Express-Miniatures-N-Recreational-Detail-p/rem-2192.htm

[Bendtracker1]

Cool!
I thought about this from WS at first.



But I think two of these would be better!

[GaryHinshaw]

Nice work Allen!  I just read through your blog posts and its too bad the glass-like surface didn't work out, as it looked awesome:



But the finish you got gives the impression of a breezy day.

[Bendtracker1]

Nice picture Gary!!!   
Thanks for the comment.  I too loved the finish after the original pour, it reminded me of being on a lake at 5am in the morning with a top water plug.  I agree it did look awesome.
But the only problem I seen with a smooth surface like that is it would have attracted fingerprints and dust!  Which is why I wanted a chop on the water.  Plus this Quick Water never dried to a hard slick surface, it was as sticky as flypaper.

[Bendtracker1]

With the lake scene behind me, it was time to move to the next project.
This one is one that I've been waiting to play with for what seems like years now.

STATIC GRASS   

The W&OV essentially operates on a branch line. Although in my world it does a lot a business.
But I still wanted to portray low maintained tracks that are overgrown with grass and weeds.

I started out with this several weeks ago. Here I painted the ballast with a heavy wash of brown acrylic paint to darken it a bit, then I randomly added a mix of ground foam colors ranging from dark brown to light green to give a nice weedy look. I did this with the intent to add static grass for taller weeds. This is the siding for the chip loading at Crushmoore.





The other night I dug out the Static grass applicator. I also had acquired several different types of static grass, the first was the Woodland Scenics grass, a friend and I collaborated on an order that landed us some Noch Blended grass, blended color and blended lengths 2.5 mm to 6 mm. A short while later I picked up some Silflor static grass, this was 4 mm & 6 mm.
The Noch was some nice stuff, but it has almost too much yellow in it. The Silflor was all green, the 4 mm was summer grass, the 6 mm was late summer [lighter] grass.

My original thought was to mix the 4 mm and the 6 mm together in a 2 to 1 ratio with the bulk being made up of 4 mm
After putting some of it down, it was REALLY green! so I grabbed a pinch of the Noch grass so as to add a bit of yellow to the mix.

This is what I came up with






I gave the same treatment to the siding for Heavy Metal.





Now I've been told to be careful so that the grass will not get pulled up into the gears of the locomotives. I can see this happening so I will probably go back in and snip and trim the height bit between the rails. But I did get things to run through the tall grass! But only after some heavy cleaning

Here's the proof...

As always, there's more on the blog.

[Ed Kapuscinski]

I like it. I also like the texture of the grout next to it too.

I think it looks like a good dirt/gravel mix. Is it sanded or unsanded?

If it's sanded, you might want to brush some unsanded on too, to make it look a little more "dirt like".

[soo]

Ahhh scenery,,,looks great!!!
 
  I too love the parking area!! Nice transition from the grassy area to the gravel!!! I like the lake scene also with the dead fall.


Laters

[Bendtracker1]

I like it. I also like the texture of the grout next to it too.

I think it looks like a good dirt/gravel mix. Is it sanded or unsanded?

If it's sanded, you might want to brush some unsanded on too, to make it look a little more "dirt like".

Thanks!
It's sanded grout, Fawn is the color.
When you say "...brush some unsanded on..." are talking about using the same color or a different color in the UNsanded variety?

[Bendtracker1]

Ahhh scenery,,,looks great!!!
 
I too love the parking area!! Nice transition from the grassy area to the gravel!!! I like the lake scene also with the dead fall.

Laters

I thought it worked out pretty good, I might try to go back with some 2mm and also try some weeds like "lashedup" did on his Wisconsin modules:

[nscalemike]

Hey Allen,  been a long time but caught up on your progress last night and today,  both the lake and the grasses are looking very nice!  Keep up the pictures!

Mike

[Ed Kapuscinski]

Thanks!
It's sanded grout, Fawn is the color.
When you say "...brush some unsanded on..." are talking about using the same color or a different color in the UNsanded variety?

That's a good question.

If you have something close, I'd go with that. It doesn't have to be a perfect match, but close would probably look better.

[Smike]

Excellent work Allen! I love Right of ways in need of a good clean up, adds a level of realisms. also love the Lehigh and Hudson patched unit 

[Bendtracker1]

Hey Allen,  been a long time but caught up on your progress last night and today,  both the lake and the grasses are looking very nice!  Keep up the pictures!

Mike

Thanks Mike.
Good to hear from you...

[Bendtracker1]

Excellent work Allen! I love Right of ways in need of a good clean up, adds a level of realisms. also love the Lehigh and Hudson patched unit 

Thank you sir!
Almost all of my W&OV units will be ex CR or other roads ALCo's but all will retain their former number and paint scheme.  One or two may get an actual W&OV scheme if I can ever decide on one.

[Scottl]

Nice scenery work Allen, everything is melding together into a very realistic look.