What are your scenery tricks?

[mark dance]

I agree, gloss gel gives a lot of control and is easy to work with.  Pouring might be useful in some situations, but not most in my experience.

agreed^2





Another "trick", or maybe better would be to call it "learning", is to be very very careful with over-using isopropyl alcohol as a wetting agent on scenery.  prolonged exposure to high levels of alcohol vapor can effect the nervous system in a very unpleasant way (shakes, headaches, irritability, difficulty concentrating).  I know unfortunately.

md

md

[DKS]

You can do quite a lot with just gloss gel and a tiny bit of white acrylic--

[mark dance]

You can do quite a lot with just gloss gel and a tiny bit of white acrylic--

what he said!





(dueling posts! )

md

[DKS]

what he said!

Yeah, except Mark is waaay better at it than I am...

[Kisatchie]

Hmm... my scenery tip is
to slap down some plywood,
put on a layer of white glue,
and sprinkle stuff over it, then
throw it all away - it's no
damn good...

[mark dance]

Yeah, except Mark is waaay better at it than I am...

I humbly disagree...that white water is fantastic...most realistic I have seen.

Md

[robert3985]

You can do quite a lot with just gloss gel and a tiny bit of white acrylic--

what he said!



(dueling posts! )

md

I've got the rivers and streams down pretty good, but haven't done a waterfall or steep rapids yet.  I'll use you guys' work and photos as inspiration!  Excellent!

[DKS]

The coolest thing I discovered about gloss gel is that it can be used to create "mist." The misty effect around the churning white spray in the photo below is not shopped, or a result of over-exposure; it's multiple layers of gloss gel laid on until it starts to become just slightly cloudy. It's applied over a base of stippled white acrylic paint.

[Mark W]

Loving the water tips, especially with a river on my module fast approaching.

One thing I always forget is to NOT carve river depth into the terrain, especially for the tips above.  Plan the water surface, not the depth. 

[Mark W]

The coolest thing I discovered about gloss gel is that it can be used to create "mist." The misty effect around the churning white spray in the photo below is not shopped, or a result of over-exposure; it's multiple layers of gloss gel laid on until it starts to become just slightly cloudy. It's applied over a base of stippled white acrylic paint.

This and the above tips have me curious.. has anyone tried adding extremely fine glitter to their paint mix for water?  Especially in mist and rapids, I wonder if it would add a nice sparkle effect, assuming you can find glitter fine enough, and you don't over do it. 

[Chris333]

I don't know about glitter, but maybe pearl powder.

[jimmo]

I wouldn't put any glitter or reflective substance in the gel, let the texture reflect light the way naturally flowing, churning water does. Look at the way the previously shown water effects glitter with reflections. Beautiful job guys.

[Hornwrecker]

You're always going to need a lot more trees than you think you do.

From Ed K: real trees are a lot taller than are modeled on most layouts.  I researched how tall the various trees are in the area I modeled (NE PA), and also bloom times of them, as I chose to attempt to recreate springtime.

Collect lots of photos of the area, specifically on the morphology of the landforms, and any bedding structures to types of rocks specific to the area. (ex geology major, so I tend to talk like this about this subject.  Sorry.)

]





(been too damn cold in the basement for my hands to work, so nothing done on the layout in quite awhile)

[jimmo]

Those are some of the best-looking trees I think I've ever seen on a model railroad. This thread is bringing up some great, inspiring stuff.

[PAL_Houston]

You're always going to need a lot more trees than you think you do.

From Ed K: real trees are a lot taller than are modeled on most layouts.  I researched how tall the various trees are in the area I modeled (NE PA), and also bloom times of them, as I chose to attempt to recreate springtime.

Collect lots of photos of the area, specifically on the morphology of the landforms, and any bedding structures to types of rocks specific to the area. (ex geology major, so I tend to talk like this about this subject.  Sorry.)

I agree with this 100%.  I would hate to add up how much I've got invested in trees, and I still need more.  And I have used a significant number of HO scale trees.  In addition to rock forms and bedding rocks also have color and texture.

And there is "smoke and mirrors".  I needed a way to make track go into a wall, so here's what I did:

I had a lot of advice on this, and I love the way it turned out.