FORUM CLINIC: Building realistic scenery

[Anonymous]

Thanks, Joe. Sounds like I have been on the right track. Two other quick questions: (1) what do you find is the best mister? I have tried several and none are great. I have tried Woodland Scenics. I have tried pumps that I found at the container store. I have tried the bigger dispensers for Windex and similar (the kind you squeeze a trigger). The best I have tried is the old Windex bottle with the nozzle you push down. (2) Previous question was for wet water. What about mister for scenic cement, diuted white glue, etc for foam landscaping? Best so far is the same old Windex bottle, but even when I clean it thoroughly after each evening's use, it spurts globs from time to time and is not as smooth and "misty" as I would like. I want something like what I get out of my airbrush, I guess. Maybe that is wanting too much.

Thanks again.

John

[jfugate]

JS:

I get a plant mister spray bottle in the Walmart garden supply area. Something like this (although this one is from an office supply store online):


http://www.discountofficesupplies.com/ce/shop/ui

Get the kind with the trigger pump and an adjustable spray tip. Works great for generating a fine water mist once you have it adjusted right.

As to glue, I never spray the stuff. I mix a thin 3:1 white glue mixture in an old Elmer's glue bottle, and I dribble it on after wetting an area with wet water (water with a few drops of dish soap in it to break the surface tension).

But I don't use white glue very much -- haven't found much of a need outside of ballasting or the occasional loose rock/talus slope. The plaster dirt sets up hard on it's own, and for most other things, like bushes, trees, and grass, I glue all that in place with hot glue.

I have also done sweatshirt grass, and used contact cement for that ... but oh boy, contact cement has strong fumes, so I'll let the layout room air out several hours after using it ... which isn't often.

Hope that answers your questions!

[electrolove]

JSoule and jfugate:

Very interesting discussion, this kind of questions and answers is just what I need, thanks to both of you.

[jfugate]

Been a lot of scenery questions lately, so I think this forum clinic could use a bump ...

[chateauricher]

Time this one re-surfaced.

[jfugate]

Agreed ... a bump is in order.

[bogp40]

QUOTE: Originally posted by jfugate

A few more comments on proper color ...

When we get into discussing the how-to side of doing model scenery, you will notice I use techniques that introduce subtle color variations into the scenery.

For example, indoor lighting is far dimmer than outdoor sunlight, so I use coloring tricks to make the indoor lighting look more like sunlight. When I do a decidous tree, once it is all done, I take a can of pale yellow spray paint and lightly mist the tree from above. This causes the parts of the tree that face UP to have a hint of yellow green as compared to a darker green on the parts of the tree that face DOWN.

This trick simulates sunlight and makes the model tree that's under dim indoor lighting look a lot more like it's outside under sunlight. It's subtle tricks like this that really make your scenery "pop" and look real.

Joe, I really like the trick of the yellow highlighting will have to use it. The main reason for this response is color variations using various lighting. I found it necessary to scenic under the same lighting that will be the permanant lighting of the layout or scene. Have you ever had any problems with colors, mainly greens under various types of light?
One section of my club layout was sceniced using the house lights, due to that the track lighting was not completed. The house fluorecent lights are not full spectrum by any means, once the halogen track lights lit the area the greens were way off. Under the house fluorecents way too much bright green was used for a final look of rural New England. The entire area had to be mutted by adding burnt and yellow grass.
I don't know if you planned on discussing lighting vs proper colors as well in this portion of your fabulous scenery clinic.
Keep up the great work, always enjoy visiting you site.
Bob K.

[jfugate]

Bob:

Lighting is very important, yes. One good tip is that whatever lighting you use for your layout, you should also use at your workbench. You avoid nasty color shift surprises that way.

Colors can shift dramatically between outdoors, and indoor florescent lights, and indoor tungsten lights. Florescents are getting a lot tougher because there are now cool florescents, warm florescents, greenhouse florescents, fishtank florescents, daylight florescents, and full-spectrum florescents.

Cool florescents ("shop lights") have a limited spectrum and have been known to even affect behavior in office environments where people have to work under this lighting for long periods. They give the sick green color to photos that is well known by photographers. Since they have a significant green element to their spectrum, they cause certain greens to shift and look quite different than under other kinds of light.

Some people (Tony Koester comes to mind) prefer the "cool mountain" look of the cool florescents, but I find them depressing. I prefer the warm sunshine look of tungstens, and since I model July and August scenery on my layout, the warm yellow look of the tungsten light looks perfect to me and feels just like a warm summer day in Southern Oregon (where I grew up).

Then you get into technical problems around lighting like the way tungsten bulbs run hot and heat up a room more than the same lumens of florescent lights. And while cool florescents are very cheap, the other florescent bulbs cost quite a bit more, with daylight florescents being especially costly.

On my Siskiyou Line, I use low wattage tungstens (15W and 25W) which keeps the heat down, and makes using tungsten lights practical. You can get cheap dimmers for tungsten lights, which is another advantage of them over florescents.

I take a glossy color photo of prototype scenery with colors I want to match, and match the colors under the layout lights to the colors in the photo. I suspect that's one reason people tell me my layout photos look like they were taken outdoors, like this one:


Larger image: http://mymemoirs.net/model-trains/forum/phpBB2/images/trains/LocoHeadlights.jpg

[chateauricher]

back to the top ...

note to Bergie -- please sticky this !!!

[electrolove]

BUMP is the magic word [:D]

[Anonymous]

OOPS! THIS BELONGED IN THE REALISTIC OPERATION FORUM...

[jfugate]

Hmmm ...

David, looks like you meant to post this to the Forum Clinic on operations, since this post doesnt make a lot of sense here. And it looks like your letter H was sticking, which makes this post somewhat difficult to read at best. [swg]

As the one who made this post, you should easily be able to delete this off topic and somewhat difficult to read post.

Hope you get your H key working again, your posts (when they are in the right topic <wink>) are *very* helpful.

[selector]

You mean 'elpful', don't you? [:o)]

[Anonymous]

You're right!
Have rewritten and relocated.
Glad my posts are 'elpful
Even more glad it wasn't my "Rrs" that jammed.

[hminky]

I have used the twisty florescents in commercial reflectors with baffles for directional lighting to achieve the central California sunny look



I am still tweaking it on my 4x8, which is a test bed for my dream layout. I have a web article on my experiments at::

http://www.pacificcoastairlinerr.com/4x8/lighting/

Just a thought
Harold

[Anonymous]

On lighting...
it's possible to get "daylight" lamps and tubes... these not only render better colour but are easier on the eyes.
this includes your work place... if it's very bright and you all get headaches get the tubes switched to daylight white at the next changeover. It also helps to have at least one tungsten filament somewhere in the room... it breaks up the frequency of the fluorescent light and helps your eyes.
Daylight tubes cost more but last longer... in my experience.

[chateauricher]

bump

[chateauricher]

bump

[Anonymous]

Can we start again with this thread's adress/link at the top? ... might add the "snow" thread to that...
other useful scenery threads?
What happened to the operations thread?
How do you model corn???

[jfugate]

So this thread doesn't get lost ... bump!

Modeling corn's a tricky one. Bill Danaby did it using some etched brass cornstalks available from Europe in the June 2002 MR ... but beware, etched brass is pricey. It'll set you back a 100 bucks or more to model anything more than the tiniest of fields. Bill solved this problem by modeling the cornfield up against the backdrop, so the field only had to be a few stalks deep. Here's the reference from the magazine index:
http://index.mrmag.com/tm.exe?opt=I&MAG=MR&MO=6&YR=2002&output=3&sort=A

Ken Patterson also demonstrated modeling a cornfield using some artificial grass, if I recall, in the August 1999 Mainline Modeler. Here's the reference from the magazine index:
http://index.mrmag.com/tm.exe?opt=I&MAG=MM&MO=8&YR=1999&output=3&sort=A

[jfugate]

You know, after moving over to http://www.modelrailroadforums.com/forum/ over the weekend when this forum was down, I've gotten used to the way things are organized into many more topics over there. Very handy and less chaotic.

They've created a special online forum clinic topic over there that's easy to find, so I think I'm moving over there with this and my other forum clinics as my primary haunt.

There's so much going on in this general discussion topic that I feel like I'm trying to carry on a conversation by hollering over the crowd in a crowded room buzzing with conversations. It's very draining to keep digging out these clinics now and then ... yet people keep asking questions that are covered in these FORUM CLINICS, so I know it would be nice if there was some place we didn't have to keep hollering over the din.

It's funny because I didn't think it was that bad here, until I went elsewhere this weekend and saw how much nicer it was to have the additional topic categories. If you select Active Topics over on this other forum, you get the equivalent of this forum's general discussion, so you get the best of both worlds. Very nice!

I'll not leave this forum, but I'll be hanging out over there more of the time, and posting updated versions of these clinics with new material: http://www.modelrailroadforums.com/forum/forumdisplay.php?f=64, as well as posting more new clincs over there as time permits.

[Anonymous]

Joe,

I totally dig your "clinics". However, I checked out that other forum, and it is so finely categorized that figuring out where I want to browse is almost like trying to figure out my income taxes! OK, not that bad, but there are just too many topics for my taste.

I almost think your clinics would "show" the best on your website. You'd present them in exactly the format you'd like. People would enjoy them, and people would definately link to them from the MR forums every time the topic of scenery comes up so people would see them / learn from them / become further interested in your site.

I know I would refer to them more often if they were on your site - instead of going, "ok, now where in those 13 pages of messages did Joe talk about ground cover...."

Just a random thought. Again, the material you're presenting is great.

[Anonymous]

Actually on the "other forum" if you use the New Post feature, it is similar to what you have going on here at the MR forums, it gives the last postings from your visit, the Active Topics is similar in that you cab say last 6 hours, 12 hours etc. I find it pretty easy to keep up with the posts, so if Joe's clinic is slow on posts, while it may drop, it is still reachable by going to the category it's under, plus they stickied it. It does take some getting used to.

I agree though Joe could post it at his site, but then how is anyone to know it's there if they don't know Joe and his Siskiyou Line?

I am waiting for the indepth lighting as it works with photography. The great indoor railfanning for those tired of high gas prices [;)]

[DavidGSmith]

Will you be discussing specific problems? Or should I post a new topic. I have been doing scenery for years and right now i am doing northern Ontario. Colour I can get but have run into a plaster problem.

[jfugate]

Sure, ask away and we'll see if we can get an answer.

That will keep this topic on the first few pages where people can find it.

Once this topic gets buried it might as well not exist -- so go for it.

[ARTHILL]

I read about carving rocks and have been trying (without success) for 45 years. I would like a detailed tutorial on how to carve non-sedimentary rocks (Granite etc.) I have tried in plaster and now in foam. It does not look like John Allen.

[DavidGSmith]

Thanks jfugate, I use plaster of paris to cast rocks in a mold. When I fill in the gaps with plaster of paris it seems to be a different colour and does not take my colour washes the same as the molded material. Has anyone else had this problem?
I mix the plaster in the same type of CLEAN containor.

[jfugate]

Let's take the different plaster colors question first.

When plaster has set up and new plaster is added to it, the old plaster tends to rob moisture from the new plaster, which will make the new plaster dry out too fast and set up differently from the older plaster.

To solve this problem, make sure and totally soak the previous plaster with a spray bottle like a plant mister. And I mean SOAK the plaster until it stays visibly wet for at least a minute or so (the water doesn't just soak in).

Then add the new plaster and let it set up. Once the new plaster is firm, mist the entire plastered area ... old and new plaster ... a couple of times and let it set up for a couple of hours.

Once the new plaster has set up well (give it at least two hours), you should be able to stain it and have the stain go on uniformly.

Also, its best not to stain dry plaster. Mist it well again with water before you do any staining.

Keep a plant misting bottle full of wet water handy (put a few drops of dish detergent into the water) whenever you do plaster work and *always* wet the previous plaster well first and you should have much better success getting things to look consistent with your stains.

[jfugate]

ARTHILL:

The thing most people do wrong when hand carving rock walls is they don't use thick enough plaster. You need to put the plaster on from 1/2" to 1" thick. Mix the plaster to be like soft butter so it holds its shape well.

Since you need to put the plaster on so thick when you hand carve rock walls, you need to plan ahead with your scenery sub-base so it's about 1" farther back than you want the final rock face to be.

I prefer to use patching plaster rather than plaster of paris for my hand carving work. Plaster of paris sets up in about 10-15 minutes, while patching plaster sets up in about 30-45 minutes. I prefer to have the extra working time.

If you have the plaster the right consistency (soft butter), you can push, prod, pull, and smear it around to get a rough, irregular rock wall-like shape. Then I give it about 20 minutes and come back just as the plaster is starting to get stiff.

I then gouge and break off bits and pieces of the plaster to "weather" the rock wall. You want to make the plaster do the work for you, because as it breaks off, it will form natural looking cleavage lines and rough edges ... far better than you could ever imitate with any shaping of the rocks you might do.

It helps to also carve some general cleavage cracks into the rock wall. Don't just do something random, create a sort of grain that is somewhat along the same direction. But don't do too many of these exactly parallel or completely connected -- or you will get a sedimentary look to the rocks.

Once the rocks have set up, I like to weather them a bit more with a small wire brush. The hand shaping you did at first doesn't do much to give the rocks a natural look, but the breaking, gouging, and cracks you carve later, along with the wirebru***reatment once they have set up well is what gives the rocks a more natural look.

Hope that helps. Perhaps I can demonstrate some of these techniques in my scenery DVD I'll be releasing next spring. Rock carving is one of those things that you just have to see done to *really* get it.

[DavidGSmith]

Thanks for the suggestion. I wet the area of the joint but maybe not enough. I use powdered paint in a very thin wa***o colour the plaster. Sorry if I gave the impression otherwise. 1/8tspn to about 4ozs of water. I never put detergent in it it just seems to sink in and colour the castings. A number of washes with a base colour and very light almost dry brush for the other colours.Then a wash of thin black.