One job I am looking forward to is adding in the water... the river bed and bankside is just about complete I just need to finish off the culvert.
This evening I focused on completing the culvert and adding undergrowth around the embankment, so here are a few pics... please excuse glare as this is the spray adhesive reflected in the light. So here is the stone culvert in all its overgrown glory, the bridge number plate is yet to go on.
I'm also now happy with the brickwork tones on the plinth so added a bush made from seafoam and dressed with various flocks.
And again happier now with the other side of the bridge, everything was in danger of becoming smudged... but not now. Again another bush and low growing weed along the top of what will soon be the river bank.
Finally a gorse bush flowering yellow... I think this may need a touch more attention to get it right as it looks top heavy but anyway you get the gist of it.
Hi Paul I really like your diorama build. The modelling throughout the diorama is excellent with attention to detail.
I toned the bright yellow of the gorse bush flowers down a touch of Jarvis Heather mix and rearranging some of the floral structure, I think it is a bit more convincing to the eye now.
I also planted the gradient post having given it a basic wash of white and muck tones and picking out some of the lettering with flaky black, the plan is to work on this a bit more by toning the background colour with rust and dirt and defining the lettering more, the is a new product designed by Andy Sollis on a North Staffordshire Railway milepost style.
And another view of the "work in progress" gradient post, what is now very noticeable is just how unrealistic and clumpy for that matter the length of flexitrack looks. To overcome the "plasticness" of this product I shall adjust the position of the sleeper spacings to give 24 sleepers per scale 60 feet of rail, I'll also add in plastic fishplates and cut the top of the rails to show the gap between rail lengths, once this has been done and the track fixed down a decent ballast shoulder will create the effect I want, it will just be a matter then of air brushing sleeper grime onto the tracks. Another nice little touch will be to add slewing pegs into the centre of the six foot , this is something done on the big railway so that gangers could measure lateral creep of track over the bridge structure so as to monitor and maintain correct alignment.
Thanks Kevin... its a gradient post, the style is also similar to that used by the LNWR and the Lancashire & Yorkshire Railway, this design is produced by Andy Sollis and printed in hi definition plastic, if you want one I'm sure he would do something to your requirements.
After this diorama I'm going to have a go at a slightly more complex river scene with bridge which can be incorporated into a layout display for showing... but more later once I've done a bit more planning.
Gorse is something I need to introduce on my Oakamoor layout when I return to the scenic side. That and silver birch which seemed to both be the dominant plant for the area.