Layout Progress, Finally

I managed to get some where on our layout, starting with some scenery and track. I'm trying to discipline myself into focusing on one area and just working from that point and not straying from that area until it's complete. Here in these photos I've been tring to replicate, or imply a small rocky island that features a cut right down the middle for rails and road. On it a lighthouse ( not complete) sits and it connects to what is an area representative of Rockport, MA and Stonington CT. Both are waterfront locations, in particular pennisulas. And the pennisula of the layout will feature water on all three sides with coves and inlets everywhere possible.

This large rock formation is devoid of rock molds as I'm a big fan of carving them myself, to get exactly the features I want. I start with a massing of rigid foam insulation, cut up and glued together. Then plaster is globbed on with a pallete knife. While it's still workable, I use the pallete knife to form edges, fractures and the over shape of things. Once it starts to set up I work the rest with an X Acto knife, getting rid of all the rounded edges. The goal is to remove and alter any shapes that look like plaster blobs. I often remind myself of early Star Trek episodes where the location was a rocky planet or cave. These sets featured some pretty bad rock work, it was obvious that the surfaces where really undulating window screen material or chicken wire, lending itself to the blobs and curves. But hey, i've never been to those planets, maybe they really look like that...anyway, after I remove the blobs, I'll cut smaller cracks and fractures into the rock work, often defining an predominant angle of sediment which all other cracks are based on. The mass of rock could be at 45 degrees so I'll cut them more or less parallel to that and them some that look like they've fallen away from the larger mass.

I used to just wash the rocks with alcohol and ink, dry brush them and call it a day. but recently I've been trying to vary my rock pallete. I still start with a wash of alcohol and ink, but follow it with a dry brushing of a tan latex paint. Then I apply a wash of Burnt Umber Oil paint thinned with mineral spirits. The oil for some reason has more of a contrast then the acrylic. After that I dry brush it again with white acrylic.

The photos here show some of the various stages, there's much more work to be done in this area, I'll post some more next week.