Large Scale Central

Southern and Gulf - unstoppable progress!

yeah…

… my great, quick work…

I have had a set of cars on the workbench so long, I have had to change the build date (year) more then once. I am a bit embarrassed to say how many times.

why be embarassed? being slow is just a proof, that you aren’t too hasty.

after we moved, about ten years ago, i built a house. well, it is not a house yet, just a flat of a housefront.

but i know exactly, how it will look, when i’ll have it finished. (that will be some weeks after age has softened my brain too much for getting new, exciting ideas…)

Korm, I am embarrassed because the mechanical work is done, all except mounting the brake wheels. I just need to get off my butt, and plant my butt down at my workbench, and letter the darn things. Now I have 4 gondolas and a caboose to letter too. So I need a nice rainy day, to sit down and gettem lettered.

yeah, and then you see, that you are short an “R” or an “L”, and lay it all aside again.

been there, done that.

Korm Kormsen said:

yeah, and then you see, that you are short an “R” or an “L”, and lay it all aside again.

been there, done that.

Korm, that’s why I use a paintbrush to letter my cars. I got tired of running out of certain letters, but having an abundance of other ones left over.

In large scale its not too bad, but in HO its a bear!

you really PAINT these letters??

Yup. And that is why I have several cars waiting for lettering. I need a steady hand and clear vision, and plenty of motivation to do it right.

so it wasn’t you… the man that went to the Doctor’s, with badly shaking hands.

the Doc asked: “are you drinking much booze?”

the man answered: “no, Doc, i spill most of it.”

(http://largescalecentral.com/externals/tinymce/plugins/emoticons/img/smiley-laughing.gif)Cute.

Korm, my hands do shake a bit, but I know how to work around that. My hands cramp after a while, and I work with that too. And my eyes get funny after a while of doing lettering, blurry spots, and twitching. That is what makes me take a break.

thinking about it, my layout won’t be the quickest built, nor the best detailed (more in a Mik-manner), but it definitely will be the one layout, where the most possible building methods were tried out.

for this section of rocky landscape i made the shell with another variation - stripes of a threadbare bedsheet, dipped in a mixture of plaster, white glue and enough water and then draped over the chickenwire.

i had done the same with toilet-paper before.

the plaster in it will connect to the next layer of colored plaster, the white glue will give a shell, hard enough to withstand the inspection expeditions of my 20 pound tomcat.

Great looking snow capped mountain!

oh, this “snow” will “melt” down, when i paint on the second layer.

as for me it is nearly impossible to find the same tone of color mix twice, i decided to first finish the whole area with the first (white) layer, before i mix one big pot to apply the second layer to all sections at once.

i just took a look and noted, that this glue and plaster mix takes its time to dry.

after two days, there are still wet spots.

Have you tried a fan?

I’m a fan! Ha!(http://largescalecentral.com/externals/tinymce/plugins/emoticons/img/smiley-yell.gif)

oh…

no…

no, i didn’t think about applying high tec solutions.

that were very busy weeks! but not for the layout.

finally i found some time, whipped the snails into (slow)motion and finished the basic layer of the grade between two mountains.

so this part of the layout is nearly done…

only things left to do are: making the stone texture, painting and drybrushing the stones, plant some grass, make and plant some bushes, paint and half-hide a fox or a rabbit, weather, put and fasten the trestle, build a tunnel portal, ballast the last two yards or so of the lower line, and paint and set up figures for the inauguration party.

i think, it would be realistic to guesstimate, that this all might happen within this decade.

…Enjoying the progress!

Wake up, Rooster! something more to enjoy…

i stole meself some time from more important things (says SWM…) and mixed a pot of stonetexture.

some acrylic plaster crackfiller with black acryl color, water and lots of sawdust (the coursest sawdust i could find, with big particles)

painted/formed everything, that had dried more than a day.

Damn! I mean, that looks great.

the difference in color tones between dry and wet paint in these pics, is what i will try to achive next. as a permanent effect.

(fighting with myself over the question, to add some browns, or not)