Ever evolvin dio. ft. 'THE INDESTRUCTIBLE TREE' as ft. on youtube.

[Badder]

With the cobbled area more or less sorted in respect of the cutting and fitting, I'm going back to the track area. The cobbled area can wait until just before the building is fixed in place.

 

I've had a bit of a hack at the Silver Birch tree taking a few chunks out of the top and around the sides, because it looked far too rounded and lollipop-like for my tastes. There's a few off-cuts hanging around in the branches which I will have to blow out using an airbrush, because tugging and pulling at bits and pieces is bound to result in mistakes, damaging the okay bits.

Now, with regards to the track area, I am including the bridge over the mill race or 'leat' and the curved wall. Bomuth of these features will hopefully be fixed in place this morning. Then I'm going to start gravelling, muddying, grassing and rutting the track area.

BTW, I will be adding a fair bit of vegetation again, a few bits along the mill race bank, and especially the wall area. This time I will be going for brambles.

 

TFL

Badder

[Badder]

Every time I positioned that curved wall I realised it was too tall.  My original idea was to have a piece of high ground behind it on which stood the tree, while grass, weeds and flowers encircled the tree and hung over the wall. I also considered placing a small duck pond beyond the tree, but that would mean having to set the duck pond down at ground level: too high above the cobbles and it wouldn't look logical. Also the high wall would then be exposed on both sides, with no raised ground behind it and no overhanging greenery.

I've therefore lowered the height of the wall, cutting it in half lengthways.

I fixed the top half of the wall in place with medium and thin CA. The wall does not in fact come right down to track level but has its foundations on a small terrace. The fit is not perfect between the bottom of the wall and the plaster terrace but it does not concern me. It will all be hidden behind vegetation.

 

The first job then, was to colour the plaster terrace and create variation down to track level. I stuck with water-washes of dark earth, and chromium oxide green weathering powder and water-based black acrylic ink. I have to say again that the acrylic ink is spectacular stuff, the tiniest of drops going an unbelievably long way! I sometimes let a wash dry and then rubbed it back with a dry clean brush. In places I re-applied washes.

 

Then I began the 'covering-up' process, first dribbling medium CA in certain areas along the base of the wall and sprinkling Coriander over the top. YES, Coriander! What happened to my Dil Tops? Well, nothing. They will be added next. Once this is done I will be picking out some details with a bit of fine brushwork. 

I've also added a step, using the 'not foam board' board. The joints in the stonework was once again carved using nothing more than medium pressure with a pair of dividers.

TFL

Badder

Edited February 22, 2018 by Badder

[Badder]

Here's the Silver Birch after some surgery, thinned out and looking less like a lollipop.

 

TFL

Badder

Edited February 22, 2018 by Badder

[Vince1159]

Lovely job on the wall Badder,it's a beauty ....

[Hewy]

Really is very nice work badder, i feel a dio coming on, very inspiring 

Glynn 

 

[Badder]

11 hours ago, Vince1159 said:

Lovely job on the wall Badder,it's a beauty ....

 

8 hours ago, Hewy said:

Really is very nice work badder, i feel a dio coming on, very inspiring 

Glynn 

 

Thanks Vince,

The wall will have more veg growing on it and hanging over it, so I'll be getting the fishing line and leaf punches out again.

 

Thanks Glynn,

I look forward to seeing your diorama. Any idea what you're theme is going to be?

 

Rearguards,

Badder

[Badder]

An experiment with the leaf punches.

Here I've used the oak leaf punch, CA'ing the leaves directly to heated bundles of 2lb breaking strain fishing line (maxima) before giving them a wash with green weathering powder.

The results aren't brilliant as I wasn't being hyper-careful with the positioning of the leaves. However, after a bit of detailing on the leaves and a coat of satin varnish, I think these will do as a 'bulking' plant for either the existing hedgerow (I do intend to add more vegetation to the outside edge) or the curved stone wall.

 

 

TFL

Badder

Edited February 22, 2018 by Badder

[Hewy]

14 hours ago, Badder said:

 

Thanks Vince,

The wall will have more veg growing on it and hanging over it, so I'll be getting the fishing line and leaf punches out again.

 

Thanks Glynn,

I look forward to seeing your diorama. Any idea what you're theme is going to be?

 

Rearguards,

Badder

When i say diorama i mean a base, along the same lines as a little grey fergie i built earlier on this year,  but for the scammell pioneer, maybe high hedgrows, sunken track, I'm  pondering a cranes mk 1 transporter trailer for it from accurate armour and loading it up with something, cromwell maybe, just an idea at present,,, cracking foliage btw, must invest in one of those punches, 

Glynn 

[Badder]

5 hours ago, Hewy said:

cracking foliage btw, must invest in one of those punches, 

Thanks Glynn,

I bought all 4. Hopefully they'll all prove useful in this and/or future dioramas. It's a case of finding out how they can be used other than for the obvious. Having said that I think gluing several hundred, or even thousands of single leaves to a tree armature might be beyond my levels of stamina!

5 hours ago, Hewy said:

scammell pioneer, maybe high hedgrows, sunken track, I'm  pondering a cranes mk 1 transporter trailer for it from accurate armour and loading it up with something, cromwell maybe, just an idea at present

Sounds good. Not too deep a sunken track though, otherwise you don't get much of a side view of the vehicles!

 

Rearguards,

Badder

[Badder]

Sticking with what I know, I've made a start on adding some vegetable material to the curved wall. Here I made up 2 'fishing line and herb' plants, in much the same way as I did the 'cow parsley' for the hedgerow. These plants are smaller though and less of a free-standing species, preferring to grow up a vertical support. Again, I used bunches of 2lb Maxima fishing line and dipped them first in medium CA and then Dil Tops. I CA'd them in place up against the wall, dribbled medium CA around their roots and sprinkled more Dil Tops on top of that.

I'm going to add some punched leaves in amongst this lot, and apply some light-green here and there. Tufts of grass will also be added. This little area will lay right beside the ruts in the track.

 

TFL

Badder

Edited February 22, 2018 by Badder

[Badder]

 

A few more fishing line plants have been added further along the wall (Right) A few stones from the base of the wall lie on the ground, pushed out by roots of the large tree. I've re-applied 'moss green' grit paint to the wall because it wasn't showing up so well after I applied more washes to the wall.

 

TFL

Badder

Edited February 22, 2018 by Badder

[Badder]

Work stalled because of life getting in the way (I'm  not saying that we are dead whilst engaging in our hobby) Because of this, I kind of rushed vegetating the wall, throwing in rather too much Woodland Scenics 'underbrush' which encroached upon the track area where I intended to have purely a grass covering.

 

And then whilst adding a metal gauze and a layer of plaster to the ground behind the wall, plaster dust and wet plaster splashed over the wall and onto the vegetation. I should have waited for it all to dry and then brush it off, but instead I tried to wash it off with a wet brush and that obviously wasn't a good idea. The whole area was washed with plaster, drying a powdery white. More water washing improved things, but now all of the vegetation is the same muted and very boring grey/green.

 

Still, none of this is a disaster and can probably be saved when I add the punched leaves and overhanging plants. Worst case scenario is that I will have to remove what's there right now and start again.

 

Having said all of that, I'm going to bite the bullet and crack on with grassing up the track. This is going to require a LOT of static grass. Luckily I have half a dozen packs of the stuff in my 'effects' box so I think that should cover it. Pun intended.

 

So, first things first... a full English breakfast made by the good wife.

And then to spend half an hour chopping up 'grass' : a mix of 3 colours of Woodland Scenics. I'm going for short grass of between 1 and 2mm for the track area itself, and only slightly longer for the slope up to the mill race bank.

 

Photos of each stage will be posted as I progress.

 

 

 

 

TFL

Badder

 

[Badder]

I have used this 'metal gauze embedded in plaster' method of applying grass several times now, and I always fail to realise just how effective it is. The largest single area I've ever covered in one go is approximately 10x10cm, simply because I didn't want to sit there and cut up a huge amount of grass, and wanted to do a bit by bit approach, just in case I had some change of plan and decide to put some unplanned feature in, for example. 

 

But with this track area, it's all going to be grass and a few ruts, and some other vegetation, so I could basically go ahead and grass the whole lot and worry about the ruts and other stuff later.

 

Here's the thing. When I fixed the several metal gauzes in place, I made sure to leave a section of each exposed so that I could clamp the applicator to them as I moved across the board. But I also thought to make sure that each piece of gauze touched its neighbours, hoping that the electrical charge might spread further across the whole area. Well, as it turned out the latter was the case. In the photos below, I clamped the applicator to exposed gauze in the position shown, just for photographic purposes. In actual fact, the applicator was clamped at the other end of the track, by the bridge.

 

 

Below:

Here you can see the mess made by the spilt plaster. Still, nothing that can't be fixed, and actually it may just add to the weathering!

 

 

To test that that the grassing could be done with the clamp fixed in just the one position...

I clamped the applicator to the gauze exposed by the bridge, charged up the applicator and then dabbed the sieve to the ground nearby, checking for a spark, and then moved the sieve further away and dabbed again. It turns out that the sieve sparked all the way to the back of the diorama, and so the application of grass could be carried out without having to move the clamp. 

 

I've now grassed up 4/5ths of the track very quickly, time cutting the grass being the longest part of the process.

 

BTW, I grassed with the 1-2mm stuff first and then went back over with a mix of longer lengths. I did it this way because I found that if I mixed the very short stuff with the longer stuff, the short stuff fell through the sieve first and would more or less all land in one heap, leaving only the longer grass for the remainder of the track.  In places I used a different ratio of coloured grasses, breaking up the monotony. For the same reason there are some bare-ish patches: the randomness of grass density being more realistic, I think.

TFL

Badder

Edited February 22, 2018 by Badder

[Badder]

Some of you may question why I didn't make the vehicle ruts before grassing-up, and how I intend therefore to 'bed' the vehicles into the ground so that they look heavy.

Here's why:

I am still not sure which vehicles I'm going to use, and neither am I sure where they are going to be positioned. Both have a major impact on where the ruts will go. Obviously!

So it was a case of grass up now and 'rut' later, or leave both until towards the end of the build. And I didn't fancy grassing-up and rutting towards the end of the build. Far easier to grass up now without the tree and building restricting access.

It is just a case then, of working out HOW to make the ruts once I've settled on the vehicles and their positions.

Well, I THINK I have that sorted. More on that when the time comes.

 

Further work on the grass has stopped due to the unfavourable position of the sun in relation to my dwelling's place on the Earth.

 

TFL

Badder.

 

Edited February 22, 2018 by Badder

[Vince1159]

7 hours ago, Badder said:

Work stalled because of life getting in the way (I'm  not saying that we are dead whilst engaging in our hobby) Because of this, I kind of rushed vegetating the wall, throwing in rather too much Woodland Scenics 'underbrush' which encroached upon the track area where I intended to have purely a grass covering.

 

And then whilst adding a metal gauze and a layer of plaster to the ground behind the wall, plaster dust and wet plaster splashed over the wall and onto the vegetation. I should have waited for it all to dry and then brush it off, but instead I tried to wash it off with a wet brush and that obviously wasn't a good idea. The whole area was washed with plaster, drying a powdery white. More water washing improved things, but now all of the vegetation is the same muted and very boring grey/green.

 

Lol i bet things didn't go to plan for Michelangelo with the Sistine Chapel either.....

[Richard E]

It's fascinating watching your progress and all the detail pictures of each area you are working on.  

 

Would it be possible to show a picture of the whole scene as it is today or would that be spoiling the surprise when it's finally finished ?

[Badder]

13 minutes ago, Vince1159 said:

Lol i bet things didn't go to plan for Michelangelo with the Sistine Chapel either.....

Apparently he did most of that lying on his back on top of scaffolding, but he still got a crick in the neck. And more than once he fell asleep up there and woke to find pigeon droppings in his pot noodle.

 

Rearguards,

Badder

[Badder]

8 hours ago, Richard E said:

It's fascinating watching your progress and all the detail pictures of each area you are working on.  

 

Would it be possible to show a picture of the whole scene as it is today or would that be spoiling the surprise when it's finally finished ?

Hi Richard,

Thank you very much for your kind comment.

 

I'm not sure how much of this WIP you've seen, but if you go back a page or two there are some 'layout' photos that include the building, the large tree and some 'stand in' vehicles. They will give you a fairly good idea of what the diorama will look like, other than for the few 'set scenes' I have in mind for the vehicles and figures themselves.

 

I hope they are satisfactory as for the moment the building and tree have been put away somewhere safe, away from the cats, and it'd be a bit of a chore to get them out, position everything and take photos... not forgetting that it's night time here and the light from my low energy light bulbs is horrible for taking photos by.

 

Rearguards,

Badder

Edited December 3, 2017 by Badder

[Badder]

I woke at zero dark thirty (for those who can't work out that 0030 hrs isn't just past dinner time) and my grassy track is looking good now that the PVA has cured and gone transparent. The underlying colours show through now, increasing the 'bulk' of the greenness. Having said that, I did make a start on 'browning up' the muddier areas, such as the approaches to both the cattle wade and the steps up to the porch area. This was done using a dark earth weathering powder wash, pushed in under and between the grass with a thin long bristle brush. The effect is very subtle but further applications will build this up, with the effect increasing as it nears the 'target'.

 

I will finish of the grassing of the track tomorrow later today. I will be adding a bit more in the way of stones/grit for the remaining area.  There are also a few patches which I want to re-visit, adding a bit more grass along the slope of the mill race.

 

TFL

Badder

Edited December 3, 2017 by Badder

[Badder]

The grassing up of the track is finished barring a few retouches that might be required once everything has set and the excess grass has been blown and brushed off. I first use my airbrush to remove loose grass and the inevitable plaster 'stone' which didn't stick down, and only use the brush to remove any bits that may be fixed 'floating' in the grass.

Here's a view from the back of the diorama to the front. Note the difference in colours is due to different lighting conditions. Note the rabbit burrow in the bank.

 

Below: here is one of those areas which I 'revisited' to apply more grass. There are others.

TFL

Badder

Edited February 22, 2018 by Badder

[Ozzy]

Just catching up Badder, nice frocking a technique I've not used before. But with your comprehensive thread, I would feel confident to give it a go.

[Badder]

15 minutes ago, Ozzy said:

Just catching up Badder, nice frocking a technique I've not used before. But with your comprehensive thread, I would feel confident to give it a go.

Hi Ozzy,

Thanks mate. The one thing I would say is try to find a gauze that has a fine mesh of no more than 5mm in width. When I applied the very short grass (1-2mm) it was clear that it 'followed' the diamond pattern of the mesh. It wasn't until I applied the longer grass that the pattern disappeared.   There are a couple of areas where the diamond pattern is just discernible, but I've left them as they are because they are small and actually look like a collection of hoof-prints now overgrown.

 

Rearguards,

Badder

[Badder]

Reposting missing pic from post #1070

 

Loose grass still in situ here. Excessively long blades of grass will be trimmed back.

 

TFL

Badder

Edited February 22, 2018 by Badder

[Badder]

I am now in the process of detailing the track area: adding stones and grit to start with, and improving the appearance of any exposed earth.

The approach to the bridge and the cattle wade got a dabbing with dilute PVA and a sprinkling of cat litter (I could have used crushed plaster) Dark Earth washes followed - working the washes out into the grass proper. The cattle wade area needs further gritting. The ramp approach will receive similar treatment.

 

 

 

Aaaaaaaargh! Mine eyes!

I will replace the last photo this pm.

 

TFL

Badder

Edited February 22, 2018 by Badder

[PlaStix]

Hi Badder. I hope you are keeping well. As I usually do I start by checking your last post first and then find where I last dropped into your thread and work my way through to the end. It's a kind of 'find out how Badder reached this point' kind of exercise. I'm always fascinated by your thought processes and experiments that result in some of the most natural looking scenic modelling around. It's amazing to see how some of the 'less perfect' moments contribute to how well things develop. Fascinating stuff as always.

Kind regards,

Stix