ground cover base

[UP2CSX]

I saw a layout where the modeler had a very convincing way of making moutainsides look heavily forested. He first painted the whole mountainside a very dark brown, almost black. He then set all his foreground trees to give him a correct height to work from. He got some wedding lace from a craft store and then measured how high he'd have to mount the lace to use as a base for clump foliage. He cut stipwood to the correct length plus an inch for anchoring in the plaster. He drilled holes and mounted the stripwood in kind of a grid pattern and then glued the lace to the stripwood so it was fairly tight but not like a bow string. He wanted some sag to account for gullies and low spots. He then glued clump foliage of four different colors to the wedding lace - oh, yeah, he painted the wedding lace black before he mounted it. This took him one eight hour day to do about 10 linear feet of mountainside that was about three actual feet tall. I saw his layout when he started and didn't see it until two days later, when he had completed the understory for the foreground tress. The effect was startling. You couldn't tell where the real trees ended and the clump foliage started. I don't have any big mountains on my layout but I'd use his method for making a forested mountain if I had to.     

[streettrains]

excellent, that has help me vision my mountain sides.... hope to post photos when the time comes...

thanks for the tips...

 

Mike

[jbinkley60]

what kind of paint would make a good ground cover base?

 

Also with my mountains, was thinking after the plaster cloth and everything was set, using clumb foilage instead of trees, just to give color and the impression of trees from a distance... any advice?

I did one of mine that way.  it looks pretty good.  I still need to add more to it but you can get the effect you want.  I do recommend painting all of it, even with dense foilage, because no matter what you do some white will show unless it is painted well.

Here's a shot of mine that will give you some idea of what it can look like:

 

 

[selector]

Find paint mix mistakes at your local hardware store(s), and seek out the light greys and browns.  A brown can be lightened with added white, some left over white primer of the same substrate perhaps.  The key is to splash it on and let it dry.  Sprinkle some ground cover and stand back to view it all.  Does it seem right?  Then the rest is more of the same.  You can improve realisme by mixing the paints in sloshes and dabs and blending them a bit to simulate real and varied surface gravel and earth. 

Whatever you do, make sure the tones are light.  I think most of us err on the side of paint that is too brown, too black or dark.

Where you intend to use dense ground cover, you can avoid the painting step.  Or, for nice dramatic shadows, pass a near empty spray can of flat black over the area for deep shadows.

[streettrains]

what kind of paint would make a good ground cover base?

 

Also with my mountains, was thinking after the plaster cloth and everything was set, using clumb foilage instead of trees, just to give color and the impression of trees from a distance... any advice?