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| FORUM CLINIC: Building realistic model railroad scenery | ||
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| joef |
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   Registered Member #3 Joined: Wed Dec 08 2004, 09:01PMLocation: Portland, OR Posts: 2112 | NEXT TOPIC: From the ground up - Realistic conifer trees F-A-S-T! My favorite technique for making lots of good looking conifer trees fast is to use a variation on the bottle brush tree technique I got from Dennis Brown of Chico, CA. Dennis's techniques are described in great detail in the March 1997 issue of Railroad Model Craftsman. I first learned these techniques directly from Dennis at a PCR convention in 1995. Another favorite technique of mine for making highly detailed foreground fir trees is the methods used by Pete Vassler of Canyon Creek Scenics ( see http://www.canyoncreekscenics.com/frm_supplies.htm for a great tree kit with instructions ), however, these trees take more time to build and are best left to the onesy-twosey foreground trees ... not entire forests unless you have lots of time -- or money. I'm sure Pete would be glad to sell you a small fortune in trees if you're so inclined!  Anyhow, back to the Dennis Brown conifer tree technique that I use for my general "conifer forest" tree construction. Get yourself a variable speed drill, a couple of spring clamps. Take a finishing nail, bend it into a hook shape, and chuck one end of it into the variable speed drill so you can hook onto the central wire of these conifers and give them a good spin with the drill. Okay, on to making the trees themselves. Start with electric fence wire (it's soft galvanized steel wire about 16-18 guage or so), bend it into a hairpin U shape, the length of your tree you want to make, plus about 30%. When you twist the wire later, you will lose about 1/3rd of the length, so remember to account for that.  Tree trunk wire shaped like a huge hairpin, with an L bend in the end. Then take some sisal rope ( http://doityourself.com/store/6431225.htm ), cut it into chunks about 3" long, and separate the rope completely into its smallest hairlike individual strands. Lay out some half-inch masking tape sticky side up the length of the tree, then distribute the minute sisal rope hair-like strands along the length of the tape. You can get different densities of tree by how many sisal strands you use and how much you clump the strands. Lay the tape inside the hairpin-shaped wire U, clamp the open end of the U-wire to a table with the spring clamp, hook the loop end of the wire U with the finishing nail hook you chucked into the drill and spin away! In a few moments, this will spin the wire tight and make a real bottle-brush shape.  Clamp the L end to a board and hook the wire hook bit into the other end and spin! Unclamp the bottle-brush and trim it to a christmas tree like cone shape with scissors. The most natural looking conifers are not perfect, so trim the tree inevenly, snip out spots almost down to the trunk, and so on. Plant your newly trimmed conifer bottle-brush upright into a strip of styrofoam. I keep making these raw bottle-brush trees until I have 5-10 of them planted into a strip of styrofoam. From here on out, the steps are nearly identical to the steps used for the deciduous trees. Spray paint the trunks gray or tan and highlight lightly with flat black. In order to get the right foliage texture for conifers, when applying the foam, first spray adhesive on the bare bottle-brush tree and sprinkle on dark green coarse ground foam (similar to what is done for the decidious trees).  Trees with their first coat of ground foam ... the coarse ground foam. Lightly sprinkle on fine ground foam next. However, conifer needles generally are much finer that the broad leaves of decidious trees, so after applying the coarse ground foam, spray the tree again lightly with spray adhesive and sprinkle on fine dark green ground foam. The coarse ground foam gives the tree body, but the fine ground foam gives it the proper texture contrast to decidious trees. Spray with craft paint to establish the actual tree color ... for conifers I prefer Design Master Moss green (see: http://www.afloral.com/index.asp?PageAction=VIEWPROD&ProdID=535 ). Instead of using light yellow to highlight the conifers' darker foliage, highlight the conifers with Design Master Basil green (see: http://www.afloral.com/index.asp?PageAction=VIEWPROD&ProdID=535 ). As before, to plant these trees, I use a small sharp awl to poke holes in my soft vermiculite plaster scenery, put a dab of hot glue on the end of the tree trunk and poke it down into the hole. Dennis actually would take these bottle brush trees and stick them into bare tree trunks so the bottle brush formed the top 1/2 to 1/3 of the tree and leave the bare trunk to form the lower part of the tree. However, I prefer the Canyon Creek Scenics' method for trees with trunks showing because they look much more natural. I use the bottle brush trees for conifers that have foliage going all the way to the ground -- mostly large stands of trees between the tracks and the background.  A finished scene with bottle brush conifers. Notice the foreground conifers with trunks, as per Dennis Brown's technique described above. NEXT TOPIC: Doing realistic rock faces Joe Fugate http://siskiyou-railfan.net - 200,000 hits and counting!  In video ... | ||
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| Electrolove |
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  Registered Member #221 Joined: Thu Oct 13 2005, 12:42AMLocation: Sweden Posts: 34 | Hi Joe! I just registered me as a member here. Nice to see the improved scenery clinic.  /Electrolove Rio Grande Zephyr 5771 from Denver, Colorado to Salt Lake City, Utah \"Thru the Rockies\" | ||
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| joef |
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| Registered Member #3 Joined: Wed Dec 08 2004, 09:01PMLocation: Portland, OR Posts: 2112 | Welcome, electro! Nice to see a familiar face here from the MR forum! Joe Fugate http://siskiyou-railfan.net - 200,000 hits and counting! In video ... | ||
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| Electrolove |
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| Registered Member #221 Joined: Thu Oct 13 2005, 12:42AMLocation: Sweden Posts: 34 | Joe, is there any chance that you could show us a video of how you sprinkle the dirt mix on the tan paint, or maybe how you ballast your track? I'm very interested in that, even if I'm not there yet on my own layout. Rio Grande Zephyr 5771 from Denver, Colorado to Salt Lake City, Utah \"Thru the Rockies\" | ||
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| joef |
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| Registered Member #3 Joined: Wed Dec 08 2004, 09:01PMLocation: Portland, OR Posts: 2112 | Electro: I'm working on volume 4 of the Siskiyou Line video series now, and it's all about scenery. Keep an eye out and I'll post some clips from that video series to give you an idea what it covers. I'll see if I can pull out some short video of me doing the dirt or some of the ballasting, as you requested. But it will be several weeks yet before I have that video content in hand ... so stay tuned! Good request though, so I'll keep that in mind! Joe Fugate http://siskiyou-railfan.net - 200,000 hits and counting! In video ... | ||
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| KnuT |
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 Registered Member #27 Joined: Thu Dec 09 2004, 11:00AMLocation: Halden, Norway Posts: 208 | Joe, I posted a link to this clinic on a norwegian MR-forum http://www.norskmjforum.no/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=4595& as I think the scenery in western Oregon looks quite similar to the scenery in many parts of Norway. The guys liked your forum clinic - and here are some of the respons: - Nice - like what I see. - Beatiful. almost tears in my eyes - Very good link, instructive, a lot of good techniques. And - i really agree. Looking forward to see the DVD on how you make the sweatershirt-grass. KnuT PS. Yesterday I laid the first turnout and flextrack on my new layout, at last regards KnuT see my blog on The Peavine and Santa Fe: | ||
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| Electrolove |
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| Registered Member #221 Joined: Thu Oct 13 2005, 12:42AMLocation: Sweden Posts: 34 | I'm looking foward to that Joe, thanks. Electro: I'm working on volume 4 of the Siskiyou Line video series now, and it's all about scenery. Keep an eye out and I'll post some clips from that video series to give you an idea what it covers. I'll see if I can pull out some short video of me doing the dirt or some of the ballasting, as you requested. But it will be several weeks yet before I have that video content in hand ... so stay tuned! Good request though, so I'll keep that in mind! Rio Grande Zephyr 5771 from Denver, Colorado to Salt Lake City, Utah \"Thru the Rockies\" | ||
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| joef |
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| Registered Member #3 Joined: Wed Dec 08 2004, 09:01PMLocation: Portland, OR Posts: 2112 | Bonus Topic: More on powdered colors Linn Westcott's ZIP texturing popularized by MR in the 1960s used dry powdered colors as opposed to powdered tempera paint. The dry powdered colors don't darken as much when you use them to color the plaster. However, tempera paint is much easier to find at craft stores or in the craft section of Walmart, Target, K-Mart, etc. The tempera paint - plaster mix darkens considerably when you wet it, that's why its good to test it first. Ideally, you are comparing it to a photo you have under your layout lights. This way, you'll get a color that's dead on for what you are trying to model, and that's not too dark. Because of the normal standing viewing distance to our models, it's like looking at the prototype from hundreds of feet away. The colors are slightly more muted at that distance. Add to that the far dimmer indoor lighting, and you need to definitely lighten your scenery colors for it to look like the real out-of-doors even though its inside. That's one of the "secrets" of the realistic scenery on the Siskiyou Line. The colors are kept light, which makes the layout look larger and feel like it's in the "great outdoors". Here's a photo that shows the light colors and the "open spaces" look of the Siskiyou Line. All on an HO layout where the deck here is perhaps 24" wide!  NEW! Model Trains Video.com has downloadable videos ($1.99 and up) that show me demonstrating these techniques. [ Edited Wed Mar 12 2008, 02:44AM ] Joe Fugate http://siskiyou-railfan.net - 200,000 hits and counting! In video ... | ||
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| joef |
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| Registered Member #3 Joined: Wed Dec 08 2004, 09:01PMLocation: Portland, OR Posts: 2112 | Bonus topic: Lighting a multideck layout Getting good layout lighting will make your scenery look better, so let's disgress for a moment and discuss how to get good layout lighting. The lower deck of a multideck layout can get mighty dark if you don't install extra lighting for that deck. Here's what I use to light the upper and lower decks on my Siskiyou Line:  (the scenery in this photo is unnaturally dark so the light sockets show up with less lighting glare) Leviton porcelain surface socket, they're called. Here's a link to them on the internet: http://www.buyacehardware.com/leviton-porcelain-surface-socket-30887.html And if you want to read more about them, I discuss them here on my web site: http://siskiyou.railfan.net/model/constructionNotes/lighting.html I also discuss multideck layout lighting in volume 2 of my Siskiyou Line video series. Model-trains-video.com distributes the Siskiyou Line videos, see: http://model-trains-video.com I use 15 watt and 25 watt incandescent bulbs on my layout, and these low wattage bulbs look great, can be dimmed, and don't generate much excess heat -- unlike higher wattage incandescent bulbs. In fact, after a 15 watt bulb has been on for several hours, I can grasp it with my hand and it's only warm to the touch. You try that with higher wattage incandescents and you'll give yourself a nasty burn! Recently, I've also been experimenting with compact florescents lights (CFLs). I have found some Microbrite CFLs that use 2 watts(!) per bulb, put out the equivalent of what a 25 watt incandescent bulb puts out, and are dimmable! Currently, my entire layout lighting takes about 2800 watts, but with these new bulbs, the total wattage of the lights would drop to a mere 200 watts! However, these bulbs also cost about 10 times the cost of a 25 watt incandescent bulb -- but they do last about 20 times longer. So they seem to be very cost effective, if you can afford the high initial cost. Here's the link if you'd like to know more: http://www.1000bulbs.com/product.php?product=9229 [ Edited Tue May 04 2010, 02:23AM ] Joe Fugate http://siskiyou-railfan.net - 200,000 hits and counting! In video ... | ||
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| michel |
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 Registered Member #69 Joined: Fri Dec 17 2004, 02:54AMLocation: Japan Posts: 126 | Joe, This has been a great treat and ranks right up there with some of the operating night reports as my favorites. I don't you can stress enough the importance of using muted colors and varied, fine textures to create realistic scenery. Too often, we'll see layouts that fixate on one type of tree or bush or ground cover and no matter how good the technique its sort of close but no cigar. The Siskiyou Line proves that variety really is the spice of life...... Michel | ||
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