Hoboken Manufacturers Railroad Micro-Layout

[wazzou]

Most of what's in these images will be left clean; the dirty stuff will be along the streets.

Wouldn't there be some filth from locomotive sand?  I would imagine that adhesion would be problematic in a 1:1 environment.

[basementcalling]

Does the retaining wall need some icicles hanging down where some snow has melted?

Snow looks colder than the stuff outside my door that fell today.

[Jeff AKA St0rm]

David that looks great. Keep up the good work.

[DKS]

Wouldn't there be some filth from locomotive sand?  I would imagine that adhesion would be problematic in a 1:1 environment.

Yeah, I'll probably play with this effect a little bit. I just want to go easy on the effects; I've learned already that it's way too easy to go overboard.

Does the retaining wall need some icicles hanging down where some snow has melted?

Actually, it has some--they just don't photograph very well.

David that looks great. Keep up the good work.

Thanks, glad you guys like it. I'm still not happy with it--wish I could start over. Oh well.

[GimpLizard]

Holy crud!!! David just reminded me... I hate winter. (Yer makin' it look too believable.)

[DKS]

Grade crossing with slush-filled flangeways (yes, rolling stock runs through them just fine). Not dirty enough yet, though.

[conrailthomas519]

  wwwoooowwwww 

[DKS]

Well, as I'd hinted earlier, I haven't been totally happy with my snow. It's hard to articulate what was wrong with it; it's as if it was saying, "I'm supposed to be snow," as opposed to "I am snow." Perhaps a bit too zen-like for some, but the subtle distinction has been nagging at me. So, with no lack of reference material, I decided to take a drive. I learned quite a lot, because in the absence of the real thing, we sometimes make incorrect assumptions. The first thing that I noticed is that, except under very specific and rare circumstances, snow is dead flat. It also doesn't glisten as much as it might in our mind's eye, and only then when the light is just right. And the only time it's glossy is when it's mostly melted and turned to slush. Additionally, it exhibits a fascinating paradox of being translucent yet quite opaque--even a fraction of an inch of snow completely obscures whatever is underneath, even when it's pitch black.

I figured the flat/translucent combination might be the most difficult effect to achieve, especially as the dead flat gesso I'd applied earlier looked just like flat white paint instead of snow. So while I was out on the road, I decided to stop in at the local Michael's. There I found what I felt might be the answer: Liquitex Ultra-Matte Gel. When I returned home, I started applying it; the first coat looked promising, so I applied another, and another... and after about five or six coats, the model snow started to look more like snow and less like a flawed artistic interpretation of snow. Ironically, the issue of snow dirtied by passing trains was forced upon me: the nickel silver rails turned the gel to an odd shade of blue-green, which didn't look like anything that related to real life. So I scraped away the greenish goo and brushed on some powdered chalk. The final effect isn't bad, but I confess I preferred seeing the rails peeking through unsullied snow drifts. Such is life.

Again, it's not 100%, but it's closer than it was. Unfortunately, it's now even harder to photograph than before, as the translucency disappears on the other side of the lens.

[wazzou]

That's looking better DKS. 

[wm3798]

I think after this winter, most of us would prefer that you change your theme to maybe a beach or something.

Looks good.  Makes my feet cold just to look at it.  The dirty snow between the rails looks spot on to my eye.

Lee

[davefoxx]

Looks good to me, too.  By the way, how do you apply the snow without leaving tool marks?  The snow piles look very natural.  Kudos!

DFF

[DKS]

By the way, how do you apply the snow without leaving tool marks?  The snow piles look very natural.

That's just Sculptamold. I plop small globs of it in place with a small spatula, then just sort of tease it where I need to. It's "plowed" off the rails with my fingers. For the really smooth, undisturbed snow, I spread a layer of DuoMatrix, a Smooth-On sculpting product, over the Sculptamold.

So, it's Sculptamold + Smooth-On DuoMatrix and/or more Sculptamold + 2-3 coats of gesso + 4-5 coats of Liquitex Ultra-Matte Gel.

[Scottl]

As the Inuit know, snow is not just snow.  What type of snow are you aiming for:  fresh, a few days old, aged, melted, etc.?  The look will reflect that as snow begins to change the moment it starts to accumulate.

I think you have done a tremendous job.  My sense is that you have an aged snowpack, one that has sat on the ground a few days, maybe melted a bit, so that the edges are rounded and the piles smoothed.  Plowed up areas are not sharply defined, and some dirt is starting to melt out preferentially.    There is always dirt in snow, so if it has aged, then almost all of the snow would show some dirt coming through, and I do see some areas that seem almost too white. 

Snow also has a hint of blue in it some times, which is an effect that is hard to capture, as it is not uniform because of light transmission.  A very subtle wash of blue might give some depth in shaded areas.  Like a drop of blue in a bottle of water kind of dilution.

[sirenwerks]

That looks amazing.

As the Inuit know, snow is not just snow.

Is that why they have 23 words for it?

[Scottl]

And yet, nothing that describes yellow snow!