Monday, January 25, 2016

The greening of the Valley

Spent some time the last few days adding scenery into the Kettle Creek Valley and into part of the yard.
Adding ground cover is a multi-step process, with lot's of drying time and the occasional revisit.
I like to start like this;
Over top of my "earth" coloured base, I brush a coat of Weldbond, (the glue I use gallons of) and sift a coat of Woodland Scenics burnt grass.
Once that dries I scatter other greens over top in a random fashion, and securing that in place in the traditional way. Spraying with wet water and then dribbling thinned glue all over the place.
Once that drys the real fun begins. STATIC GRASS!
I love that stuff. I mix 3 colours of 6 mm long grasses from Noch and apply a fairly thick layer all over. I've found that just slightly thinned Welbond has the right amount of tack to grab and hold the fibers upright while the glue dries. I just brush a coat of glue in about 1' squares and add the static grass as I go.
With the first layer of static grass in and secured, I reinstalled the bridge. For some reason, yet to be determined the abutments have moved closer to each other. Just enough to make the bridge not drop in, so some shaving was in order. I sure hope that come the summer I don't get a yawning canyon.
And I felt compelled to pose "Tilley" and a caboose on the trestle. Just cause I could.
There's more textures and ground covers to go in. Trees, bushes, etc. But with this done I can focus on less tricky areas. This gorge required that things be done in a certain order, lest I build myself into a corner.
Onward!




3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Pierre,

It looks really good now, so I know it'll be fabulous when complete! Great job!

gary

Bandoman said...

Can't believe how fast you are moving along!

Colin 't Hart said...

That looks all wrong! I've gotten so used to seeing either plywood, track or rolling stock on your blog that the green looks out of place ;-)

Seriously, this is looking really good! Can't wait to see more.