I don't think you need worry too much about the end of the road as it looks like it's going over and dropping down the brow of the hill, some bushes/hedges either side would help at that point.

Phil

I agree with Phil as that will really set it off nicely - great work Marty.

Ken

get in here mate fill yer boots as we say, you know you want to,
:thumbs;-):cool:
Owen

A good idea for 'over the hill scenes' is a shortened road sign (bend,narrow bridge etc) appearing over the hump at the back, together with a cut down vehicle roof…

Doug

PS I regularly look at good  modelling on the web, so can't remember where I saw this…

D

[user=312]Chubber[/user] wrote:

A good idea for 'over the hill scenes' is a shortened road sign (bend,narrow bridge etc) appearing over the hump at the back, together with a cut down vehicle roof…

D

Or just the roof of a cottage over the brow.

Phil

Some good suggestions there Marty.

Phil, Ken, Owen, Doug and Reg,

Great thoughts and encouragement, love the feed back.

I like the idea of the hull down or partially over the horizon image to indicate the drop over the brow of a hill but….

… there are a few other things in play here that you guys are unaware of. 

Between the back-scene and the modelled road is a gap of some 50mm/2in which allows access to the hidden trackage running at the base of the back-scene from Llandyfriog Junction to Henllan. You can see it in this photo with some yellow sponges stuffed in the gap to keep the paint off the track. (Mess has been known to be made!)






There has also been a long held desire to model a row of terraced houses from the village, the Kestrel kit houses are place holders for a future scratchbuild, and also a desire to try and capture the feel of the village as best as I can. This is not a slavish re-creation of the place, neither the skills nor the time and space are available to me for that but a good suggestion is hoped for.

As such, an image from the web of the particular street and photos taken from the visit in 2010 are being used to create some of the village on the back-scene that can't be modelled due to space restrictions. Somehow there has to be a timewarp effected to transport the modern scenes back between 50 and 70 years! Modellers licence mode engaged.

In an effort to assist the transition from the model to the back-scene I'm hoping to create layers of vegetation which will also hide the access gap. Thus the comment about putting a wood on the hillside.

Hope that helps with keeping track of what I'm trying to do… In the photo below a print out of the street scene is taped up as a guide (one copy at A4 and one at 30% reduction to get the scale correct), and texture paste has been applied to the back-scene prior to painting a continuation of the wood to try and give the painting a 3D effect and bring the wood into the foreground…. pure experimentation, we shall see if it works, but I AM having fun.







More texture paste at the back of the yard and the road and adjacent houses sketched in….





The Kestrel kits and some vehicles placed for a scale check….






… and a first pass at the woods, hedgerows and fields. This is where it was left at the end of play last night.






Now to tighten it up.

Marty

You've definitely got the touch, Marty.  :thumbs

Thanks Max.
End of play today… can't see the wood for the trees… going to let it sit overnight.






Marty

Looks bl@@dy good to me Marty :thumbs

(Said before I thought you were secretly a painter)

Ed

A frustrated painter maybe :shock::lol: hehehe, it's all fun ain't it Ed?

Marty

Certainly is :thumbs

post 1509 is the bees,I know the buildings need bedding in and bits filling in,but hey brill;
:thumbs:thumbs;-):cool:
Owen

A bit warmer here today, we had a minimum temperature of 0.9°C at 0730 on Tuesday morning… Brrr. Not as cold as some I know but it's about as cold as we get here in my place. We run the risk of low temperatures for about 2 - 3 weeks and then we'll be climbing back up to something more civilised.
Having said that, its overcast today with a band of rain heading in tomorrow and the top is rumoured to be 21°C. 

Western Australia… gotta love it. :lol:

So…

The wood on the hillside…

The woods on the mill side of the hill look like this….





and are made up of individually constructed trees. Those of you that have been following along will now that several methods of tree construction have been experimented with over the years and that the wood has gradually been built up to get to where it is in the photo above.

Here's another photo of the individual trees further around the hill above the tunnel mouth…





And I've been very happy with the result. 

However, there has been some criticism recently from SWMBO that while they are very nice it doesn't really reflect the typical dense canopy of a Welsh woodland! Nor are they green enough.

From my point of view there is a desire to get on with t' job, that is, a wooded hillside is wanted now. A new method of rapid wood creation with a dense canopy is needed.

This one works pretty well and many thanks to those on the internet that have spent the time to show the way.

Here is the before…. the painted backscene was as good as it was going to get (leave well enough alone)






and here is the after… the scene itself is incomplete and there will be some tiding up and additional shrubbery added around the base of the trees…






A slightly closer view showing the tree trunks.






After a couple of days of research, thinking and experimentation this went together in an afternoon.
Next post will show a few progress shots and discuss the method.
cheersMarty

It is coming on in Leaps and Bounds Marty - nice indeed !

Looks good, those trees make a big difference and diffuse the layout to backscene thing, I like the tree trunks too.

Phil

what difference, the scene is set and looks great,the trees are brill
:thumbs;-):cool:
Owen

Very evocative. great modelling Marty.

 

I want to live there.

Allan.

Sol, Phil, Owen, Shaun and Allan,
Thanks for the comments as always.

Yes Phil, I too think that the layers of vegetation in front of the backscene will work (as long as I match the colours properly).
In this photo you can see some new static grass on the left hand side of the road under the trees. My local hobby store just happened to have a summer grass colour from Noch that perfectly matched the grass colour in the field on the backscene.





Allan, As I've been exiled to the colonies, this model is as close to home as I can get without buying an horribly expensive airfare! I too would love to live there.

While researching a way to create a woodland quickly and cheaply I came across MarklinofSweden's youtube tutorials again. In particular this one on how to model a forest on a hill.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kQ2Lsjfh-rs


Watching the video will give you more insight into the process used. 


The process uses microfiber used to stuff modern pillows. Cheap as chips, mine was $4 Oz from spotlight (well, actually, SWMBO bought it to use the microfiber to make a small felt ball for our cat to chase around and it just happens, ball made and in use,  to have migrated into the layout room)






Cheap acrylic paints from the mega hardware are used to colour the microfiber. Squirt paint onto microfiber clump, pull on plastic gloves, work paint into microfiber, allow to dry.
The basic ingredients…


The coloured microfibre drying. it took about 15 minutes to get to this point. This lot will last me quite
 a while


 
Here's a bit of the coloured microfiber on the hillside. Deliberately coloured bright green for early summer new foliage, there are also some darker Khaki green and burnt sienna clumps too.





To my mind individual trees would often be visible at the edges of the wood and as you look further into the wood it becomes a tangled, overgrown, blur of green. As such tree trunks, twigs from the gardening chosen specifically for their "N scale tree likeness", are used around the edge of the forest. Holes drilled into the plaster hardshell with a pin vice and a drop of PVA glue to hold the trunks in place.





Then the coloured microfiber is torn up, teased out and piled up "tree like" in the middle. Glad now that not too much sweat was wasted on the backscene trees.



 


From the village street side…





From the mill side of the hill.





At this point the jury was still out but after throwing various home made (shredded, coloured car wash sponge) and purchased (Woodland Scenics Blended turf, Hornby Scenics Flouro green) at it over the course of an afternoons play… ahem.. modelling, I'm sold.







Glue was originally a 3:1 mix of mod podge mattw and water with a couple of drops of washing up liquid in it via a deodorant spray bottle but after cleaning the blocked nozzle for the third time extra, extra firm hold hair spray was resorted too.
The layout room smells like a hair salon… :???:

hope that helps somebody.

cheers
Marty