Thanks again every one. I'm doing the mountain in the background first just so I'm not reaching over finished scenery to work on them. They still meed some touching up, but there almost finished. There will be a group of traffic generating buildings butted up against the hillside, covering about the bottom 2/3's of the hill, so I wont go too crazy detailing it.

e-paw Wrote:Thanks again every one. I'm doing the mountain in the background first just so I'm not reaching over finished scenery to work on them.

Well - You're smarter than the average bear!!!

Took me a few broken buildings to learn that my belly acts just like a meteorite

My belt-line has wrecked a lot of "new" N & HO scenery .... and yes, it happens in "F Scale too!!! Even the large scales are not immune from a errant arm or hip

Have fun!!!! Take progress pics too!!!!

As part of the hillside in Easton. There is a tunnel portal for the Bangor and Easton electric Railway. It's prototype was a trolley line in north east PA that to the best of my knowledge, had no freight interchange and was out of business by the mid 50's. So I felt that the Anna lines should be It's parent railroad and give it the duty of forwarding freight between the CNJ in Easton and the SH&D at Bath Junction (the other side of the tunnel).
I wanted to add the companies initials to the keystone of the portal witch is a poured plaster cast from Wood Land scenics. This proved to be quite difficult to pull off.


I first tried dry transfers applied to the casting to use as a stencil, but the act of rubbing them on scratched and chipped the keystone. After repairing it with plaster and sanding it smooth I just drew it out by hand.


I scribed over the pencil lines with a sharp #11 blade and painted the portal with washes of craft paints; Burnt Sienna, raw Umber, and all those other Bob Ross collars. Scribing those letters was no easy task. the plaster tended to chip and crack . After a few tries I felt that this would have to do. Although not as need as I would have liked, he portal is in the background and will be partially blocked by buildings. so this detail will not be in the forefront


For now I just placed the finished portal in it's rough location for the pic so you get a feel for the scene.

That looks great e-paw

Really fine the way your careful colorizing brought out the texture and "mass" of the stone work. Perhaps next time, for the keystone, a styrene face/overlay would be easier to "chisel" in the legend, as the texture is less important than the lettering, and your dry transfers would work better, as a guide ? Just a thought - impressed (as usual) with what you're doing 1 Bob C.

I did a little poking on this (I grew up in Easton, so I'm interested), and found this: http://books.google.com/books?id=J2zH-zc...ay&f=false

if it works. It seems this line was the Northampton Traction Company, which built betwene Easton and Bangor in 1903, and then aquired the Banger and Portland to extend the line to Portland by 1915. Can't find any references to any Bangor and Easton.


--Randy

I found a map and an old pic of one of the Bangor & Easton trolleys about a year ago, I believe it was dated from around 1900, but I can't find it again. The map showed the line leaving Bangor heading east then turning south with an arrow marked "to Easton". That's about all the info I have on the line, I just liked the name and decided to freelance it a little.

Trees, Trees, & more Trees..The arborist are working hard to complete the hillside in Easton. The project manager says that He expects the planting to be finished tomorrow.[attachment=8055]

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Nice!!!! They're growing some great scenery for your layout!

Looking good on the trees...I hope the project manager told you that the trees would be done before he added to the window dressings in the first photo

Keep us posted on your progress!!!

Thanks Goat... If you look closely, you'll notice that the window dressing consists of Czech beer and Russian wine bottles.

I really like the way the top of the portal turned out. The little pits and the weathering are perfect!

Thanks Gary, The pits you are talking about were part of the original casting. I just tooled them up them with a dental pic and washes.
I took the kids out for some fishing at Lake Minsi in Bangor PA. where I was able to get a good shot of the visible rock seams that I was trying to copy on my hill side.[attachment=8067] You can see it running along the side of Kittatinny mountain just north of the lake. features like this are very common in my neck of the woods.

Nice work on the outcropping. Your rock colors are very realistic - a nice mix of colors and shading.

Thank you also for that last prototype photo. You have helped me, unwittingly, to better understand why I am not a fan of puffball trees. Nothing personal, no insult intended so please don't be upset. I've never been a big fan of the technique simply because it often looks too uniform. Yours at least have a nice mix of colors and a variety of shapes - not just round, but oblong, flatter on the top, etc. But it's just personal preference.

What your photos helped me understand is this; by the time a tree is far enough away in real life to look like a puffball, it is too far away to be modeled on our layouts as such. It might be better represented by a backdrop image on our models. I have yet to see a layout either in person or in a photo that successfully blends more detailed trees (like Supertrees) in the foreground with puffball trees in the background in order to create that illusion of distance. That may have more to do with the colors.

For example, in your lake photo the greens are different. The foreground trees along the lake are brighter and more green than the background trees which are more faded and blueish green. The trees along the outcropping are definately 'puffball' shaped at that distance. But the foreground trees along the lake are more like 'supertrees' with more well-defined branch structure and leaf texture.

Anyway, even though I'm not a fan of the technique, your ridge looks great. Where the illusion breaks down for me is at the tunnel portal, where I'd expect to see more tree trunks and branches. Even though it's as far away as the rest of the ridge, it's a more detailed feature and more recognizable as a certain size and scale.

Galen

That aria is almost complete now Galen, I have to post another pic... I will have a lot of buildings just in front of the hill side to hide the transition, and I do agree with you on the problem with the transition from puff balls to more realistic trees. It's my first try on this so I'm learning as I go.