Gibbon, Cozad & Western - "The 100th Meridian Line"

[Ed Kapuscinski]

That's a good idea, just to give it some heft/safety factor.

[C855B]

You could back fill with spray foam to solidify the mass of the hill.  I've never bothered to cut out the back of the "contour" like that as you have a lot of material to remove as you cut the slope on the front.

OOoo! This! It could save me from myself. The error is I used every third contour line as the back template when it's evident now it should have been the fourth. Cutting the back serves two purposes: use less material, and make it lighter and easier to handle. What you see is 8' long.

I certainly won't be devastated if this fails and I have to start over. This, too, is an experiment in technique refinement. So far I'm happy with how fast the overall method works.

[C855B]

Context test. Probably not its final position, but close.



Carving is next. Wish me luck.

[Chris333]

They look pink to me. 

[Jbub]

Context test. Probably not its final position, but close.



Carving is next. Wish me luck.

I don't know, but as it is, it looks a lot like super Mario bros on the original Nintendo system

[C855B]

Wah wah wah...

After 30 minutes with the Porter-Cable tool, about 60% there:



Once I have the rest carved, it needs a transition base, and then I'll slap some earthy-looking-something crap paint on it and see how it fares.

[Ed Kapuscinski]

Ok, I think it's good, but... you definitely need to blend it in to the terrain around it.

[C855B]

Oh, definitely. There will be another slab of foam under it for the transition to track level. I have an image of it from Google Streets, however, that shows much of it as a sudden rise from level with a little bit of talus along the base, the slope apparently groomed, but not recently.

Still a long way to go, but I'm generally pleased with the technique to this point. The concerns about lack of structure after carving turned out to be unfounded. I spritzed some of the low-pressure ("windows and doors") urethane foam on the open back for insurance, but there was nothing anywhere close to breaking through.

[C855B]

OK... I finished carving the block and then hacked-up something resembling a transition base:



In a word? Nope. Scott was right in that the compression was too much, and I couldn't save it with the feeble effort of a transition base.

Fortunately it's not a total fail. The Porter-Cable tool proved its worth - there was about an hour in carving all eight feet of slope, not including rest breaks. It wasn't totally mess-free, but the worse mess associated with foam sculpting, the static-clingy dust, all went down the vacuum cleaner hose. There were non-clingy "crumbs" of what looked to be congealed foam from too much pressure, and some of that escaped the vacuum. I was also happy with the layering technique to conserve materials. This would have taken two sheets of foam if each layer was solid, but the staggered cuts from the contour lines worked great - it's solid, very light, and "cost" only 3/4 of a 1-1/2" sheet of foam.

I'll use this somewhere else on the layout. It should work in a canyon scene roughed-up with a little more carving. In the meanwhile, I'll go back to the drawing board, un-compress the topo image and then have something with a lower profile to fit the Colton scene better.

[lashedup]

Is this what you are trying to capture off of the 10?



A lower profile would probably look better and give you some forced perspective from track level. From helicopter view it might be tougher unless you chose to model a sliver of the strip mining. 

If that’s not it then never mind. 

[C855B]

That is it. I happen to have been using that image for soil color and vegetation reference. The problem with this particular Google Streets view is time. I'm attempting to capture the hillock closer to its profile of 50 years ago, when it was three or four hundred feet taller.

[Cajonpassfan]

This is what I remember for the seventies...and ever changing and diminishing Slover "Mountain"; just the flag remained constant for a while...
Otto K.

[C855B]

Good reference pic, Otto, thanks! That perspective and the Google view are from the northwest along the SP near the Cutoff overpass. What I was trying for was the northeast face, what you would have seen from the Santa Fe, although in that case it obviously wouldn't be right next to the tracks. What I had didn't capture it, so maybe less compression on the slope, just paraphrase the rise in the limited space, and call it done. I will probably freelance it curving around the background since I have a corner there to hide.

Looking at the old pics reminds me that my "sky blue" in the vicinity also needs to be a touch browner.

[Cajonpassfan]

Unfortunately, I agree; in reality the "mountain" was some distance west of the ATSF/UP line. Perhaps having it, or most of it on the backdrop is a better way to go. You could capture the east face, off in the SoCal "haze", with a flag on top? A old photo looking southwest I believe below.
The upside of this, other than lessons learned, is that removing the mountain frees up space for some generic Colton-to-Riverside scenes, with low brown (?) hills on the backdrop... Backdrops can be your friends...
Otto K.

[DKS]

Wah wah wah...

After 30 minutes with the Porter-Cable tool, about 60% there:



Once I have the rest carved, it needs a transition base, and then I'll slap some earthy-looking-something crap paint on it and see how it fares.

The problem I have with this, even though it may be accurate after a fashion, is the way the slopes rise up to the backdrop and suddenly end, creating a visual issue that may be tricky to fix. This wouldn't be so bad if the hills were tree-covered; since they're just dirt, it exacerbates the problem. It may look decent when viewed straight on, but from an angle, such as in this image, it's awkward. There needs to be some sort of contour separation from the backdrop to give it more depth, and/or a painting or image on the backdrop itself to push the sense of depth beyond the foreground hills. I hope this makes sense--it's difficult to articulate.

EDIT: A picture's worth....