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I promised rock coloring by this time, but some of the plaster products I'm using take a l-o-n-g time to fully cure. But the plaster work is finally done. I won't bore you with more photos of the great white expanse, but I did get the fascia board painted.
The plaster work is set up enough to do some work on and around it, it's just that it would soak up the paint and colored washes. Here's the stock pen and grazing area I'm fitting up. You can't see it in this shot, but the fencing where it goes down the hill toward the creek is cut on various slants as it follows the terrain, with the posts still vertical. This is VERY tedious! But it will look great. The pen itself is still removable, as is the fencing outside the pens, so I can paint and add scenery texture before finally gluing it all down.
There are a couple of sheep out there staring at the gigantic clamps.
The garage building in the background is the one that was on the workbench last time, I was waiting for missing parts. They finally showed up, so that one is done.
On the testbed, I've added color and texture, further defining the creek and road. The grasses I've used here are really too green for Colorado, but I'm just using up some leftover material from the former RR.
Here's a closeup of the testbed creek. "Water" is the only thing that will have a glossy sheen. It's still a bit white, but will be totally clear when fully dry. It will take several coats to finish, about a week between each coat.
Note the "too green" grasses on either side of the creek are different colors from one another. Very non-life-like. But again, just using up some old materials.
And a closeup of the road. Texture is basically 3 or more steps.- 1 - dirt material (because there is dirt under everything!) and track ballast and very low mossy grass. 2- high grasses, low bushes, weeds and clutter like rocks and tree branches. 3 - trees.
I've bought a few different brands of relatively inexpensive model trees, and as expected, they look pretty bad. Off to eBay they go! Really nice trees you either make yourself, or have made by one of a handful of modelers out there that offer this service. I'm weighing these options now. I will eventually need hundreds of trees.
I think I've gone as far as I will go with the testbed, it served its purpose, but it's ready for the dumpster.
On the work bench, I'm building a replacement for the turntable (this will go on the half of the RR I'm not currently working on). The current turntable looks good, but I'm not happy with its operation electrically, and there's not a whole lot I can do to improve it. The bridge of this one will have an A-frame superstructure, as shown on the instruction page in the lower right. And the electrical operation is flawless.
Next time - I promise! - rock coloring, terrain painting and at least some of the texturing.
