Terrain Dilemma

[doctorwayne]

Tonight, I'll be spending the evening painting the new track work. Which is a little tricky since I'll have to tape off the sections of the already painted and ballasted track. I may or may not proceed with painting the terrain right away as I have to seal and repaint the lake bed before I start my attempts at scenery along the shore line.

I need to pay closer attention. Until seeing your comment, above, I never gave much notice to the fact that the ties weren't painted before you spiked the rail in place. If you need to tape in order to protect what's already in place, it sounds as if you're spraying. Did I miss reading, in the Scarborough thread, why you chose this method? It seems to me that it would not only be easier, but also afford more opportunities for varying the appearance of the ties if you were to stain/paint them after they've been installed and sanded, but before spiking the rails in place. Then, you could brush-paint the rails without having to mask anything - it goes surprisingly quickly, and is a job that can be done, bit by bit, even if you only have 15 or 20 minutes to spare every once in a while. No masking, no airbrush to clean: seal up the paint, rinse out the brush, and wipe the top of the rails to remove any dry, but not yet hardened, paint.
"Water" and the adjacent scenery can be a bit of a "chicken or the egg" scenario. I made the mistake of scenicing the areas adjacent to most of my water features before installing the water - this was a conscious (okay...semi-conscious ) decision because I was worried that the white glue which I used to affix ground cover would leach out onto the water's surface, dulling the finish. There was also the chance that it would carry scenic foam, too, creating pond scum on what was supposed to be moving water. There was quite a bit of glue run-off, mostly from areas where the scenic material was very deep - areas of loose rip-rap, with cinders and ballast used to fill the voids. Not much of the solid material was carried with the glue, though, and not an excessive amount of ground foam, either. The thin application of Durabond used to create the water would cover it easily, so my decision to scenic first seemed a good one. So good, in fact, that I proceeded to plant trees along the banks - these are simple homemade ones using polyfibre over twig armatures, sprayed with cheap hairspray and then sprinkled with successive applications of ground foam. They looked pretty good to me, and really made the scene look more....well, scenic.
However, I must've done an even better job of tree-making than I realised: when I got around to creating the actual "water", I discover that my trees were so realistic that they began losing leaves, just like real ones do. This was a minor nuisance during application of the plaster, but became more bothersome during painting and was an issue when the three coats of high gloss clear urethane were applied. The Maitland River didn't fare too badly, but Chippawa Creek has more floating foliage than I'd like.
I still have one major river to complete, and it will be done in a slightly different order: ground cover first, followed by water, with trees installed after the water has been completed. This is probably a better choice regardless of what you use to create the water.
Don't forget, when you're painting those "snow-covered" landforms, to carry some of the same colour down into the area where the water will be: unless the shore area is rock (like northern Ontario) there'll be at least some shallow water near the shore.

Wayne