Model Railway Forum

Thank you for your kind responses.

Liking what you have created very much.
Puddles

An area I’m working on looking towards the buffers and gates.

Looking very realistic - BB

I like the murky background.

As commented on the background is stunning, lovely and moody, if you don't mind sharing, what's your method for that finish? I might be fooled but it doesn't look like brush strokes, sponges? I've just done a first wash on a corner of mine and very quickly realised blue and white is not all it's cracked up to be. Further work needed, but it's a 'base coat'.

Thank you Carl. My method was this - the back scene is brown hardboard lightly sanded to get rid of the sheen. Then I used a mini roller to paint it with white Matt emulsion paint left over from a decorating job. The cloud effect was created using kitchen towel to dab on a variety of greys made from cheap artists acrylics.Sponging would work just as well but I didn’t have any to hand. Areas were finally blended where I thought necessary using a range of light grey chalks - the cheap kind you can buy from The Works etc. To fix the chalks I blew the whole board over with hairspray. The problem with using hardboard rather than ply is that it needs supports/strengthening. However, the hardboard seems to give a nice starting texture and you avoid the grainy sort of finish that ply gives.
PS The distant hills/horizon was also painted with acrylics as were the trees. It took a few revisits to get it right plus I am a bit arty having originally been in a creative type job. Start with light colours as they can be darkened if needed whereas trying to lighten dark colours wastes a lot of paint.

Thank you for the detailed reply, very helpful.

Know what you mean about the grainy finish from plywood, the first base coat has really highlighted that. It'll go with further applications, hopefully. Time to revisit all those art class techniques taught in school, the ones at the time you think 'why am I learning this, I'll never use it' - wrong!

Look forward to the next updates, it's all very inspirational.

Regards

A bit more progress with the layout still without a name. Have added a grounded van in the space between the corrugated fence and wall with some other detailing. Am now experimenting slowly with static grass.

Makes me feel cold looking at that, brilliant.