Mountain and Tipple Progress

The Mountain range begins with Peter (my son) building out the shell using the cardboard weave method.  He really seemed to enjoy this.  I showed him what to do and he went at it (this pic is from 2012, talk about long time with no updates, Geesh).  He was always afraid to do anything because he thought it wouldn't be good enough.  He had no idea I loved having him there, well actually he does know, because I told him.  There wasn't anything he could do wrong, and once he realized that, I would get an occasional question "is this ok?"  It was cute, he really didn't want to screw up.


the next set of pictures jumps to having another wall of mountain covered with plaster cloth and painted

Had to get a tunnel in there. What's a layout without some hidden-hard-to-reach place for the train to derail!?

My dad built a coal tipple and gave it to me for Christmas, I placed it here multiple times to make sure it fits where it was supposed to.  You can also see I've laid track already so its placed perfectly where it needs to be.

I've painted the back mountain.  In the foreground, you can see a farm scene (also built by my dad) just sitting there, waiting to be "planted"

Right, so this was a mess.  I wanted a block / brick wall behind the tipple, and I didn't want to buy one, so I decided to make one.  It started out like a nightmare.  I tried to create a vertical form to pour plaster into, but that all oozed out all over.  Then I tried to make a flat horizontal form on the table, and figured I'd just pop out the solid "wall" of plaster and then carve it.  Yea, that didn't work either.  So with this failed attempt, I grabbed a putty knife, and just pressed it in place, like I was filling holes.  Once I had a giant glob flattened out, I started carving.  This took a couple hours to do, but was actually kind of fun.  You can see I alternated between block with a strip of large brick.

The thing I like about plaster is that it you can make it look damaged without much work, and honestly, happens whether you want it to or not.  The odd patterns here have to do with how hard the various areas were when I was applying my botched batch.  I think it looks old and banged up.

here's the wall with a base coat of grey.  I wiped off some some areas, and was just playing around, and learning the effects of wet paint on soft plaster.

I wanted the brick to be darker, and here's a pretty dark wash of india ink, alcohol, and paint.  I painted about 15 coats of various colors on this thing to get the look I wanted.  Not because the look required 15 coats, but because I don't know what I'm doing, so it took me 15 coats, and I'm not really there yet.  Closer, but its still not quite right.

Here's the wall almost done, I'll probably tone down the brick color, like I said above, its still not quite right

And here's the wall, you can see it over the car.  My dad did an awesome job weathering the tipple, look at that paint!

Next up - building some rock outcroppings and scenicing the mountain itself.  I'm pretty sure scenicing is a model railroader word, but spellcheck doesn't appreciate this term, its underlined in red with only "scenting" as a recommendation.