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The previously white rock and terrain painting is complete (for this half of the RR). I'm now concentrating on scenery in the area that will be hard to reach once the 2 halves are re-connected.
I tried to get each of the 3 pairs of photos below from about the same perspective. In each pair, the first shows the track ballast, dirt and low ground cover in place (glue is still wet in places), followed with the structures, rocks, weeds and bushes added, and the timber truss bridge now permanently in place. Also, where there will be trees, there are "deadfall" branches on the ground. (I tried to get the pairs of photos side-by-side, but I lose the link to the larger photo when I do that. Grrrrrr.)
The grass outside the stock pens and down to the creek will be a grazing area for sheep. Water would be carted in to help keep it greener than most of the surrounding area. The dirt road is roughly the divider for the area I'm working - to the left of the road is mostly just painted.
On the right is the tree trunk as it comes. On the left, I've given the trunk a quick dip in brown / black stain, then I randomly streak on a little white glue with a tiny brush, then sprinkle on / shake off a fine "mossy" texture, which stays only where the glue is. Finally, I poke a few random holes with an awl under the lowest foliage (and occasionally in my finger), and glue in a few dead branches. I think this adds a lot to the look, and each one will only take 2-3 minutes to modify once I get into it. Trees planted further back in a dense grouping will only need the stain dip. In very dense groupings, I can fill in with some off-the-shelf (cheaper) trees that don't have trunks at all.
Test running some trains now, with the masking tape removed from the track as all the messy plaster and paint work is done. Only one problem found - one of my locomotives' cab roof hits some of the rock inside the natural bridge. Too much to file or sand off, and in a tight space. I tapped the rock casting lightly with a hammer and chisel, hoping to chip off just the protruding area. Of course, the whole casting broke away from the plaster gauze underneath! So I'll have to do a little surgery in there.
On the bench (besides the trees), I've finished the turntable and its control panel, it's ready to install. Here's my "Galloping Goose" taking a spin.
Building some vehicle kits. This horse-drawn sprinkler wagon is a very nice model, but the instructions are not so good (and I don't know a whole lot about horse-drawn wagons). YouTube to the rescue!
Prepping some of the figures. Most just get a thin alcohol and ink wash to dull them down a bit and create some shadows. For the sheep, even some of the best available (made by Preiser in Germany) come out-of-the-box too clean and stark white. Sheep usually have black spots, especially around the face and ears, and randomly all over their coat. And they're pretty dirty. So I touch them up with some black paint, and give them a wash of some thinned earth color. You can see the difference here.
Next I'll be planting trees, and adding vehicles, animals, people, and all kinds of clutter details. And water in the creek. Then I can re-connect the 2 halves of the RR, and move on to the next area.
