I am trying to put a plowed field next to the grain elevator on my N scale layout. Any suggestions on how to make it look realistic?
I have laid out a thin layer of drywall mud and textured it with the edge of a section of track. After it dried I knocked the high spots down with a light sanding. The texture looks right to me but painting it has been a problem. I first tried to air brush with different shades & from different direction & angles hoping to highlight the texture but that did not work. My color choices’s were bad or my airbru***echnique failed or it was just the wrong game plan. Any suggestions welcome.
I am trying foam but not good yet. One of the books suggests cutting a piece of styrene with a pinking shears and drawing it through the wet plaster. I may try that next.
Airbrush sounds like the best way to me. Maybe try a complete coat of one color for the dirt depending on how moist you want the dirt to look, darker for moist, a light brown for drier. I would say mix black and brown to make the color you want. Maybe a slight shade of red. Theres no tan in dirt.
As for making it look good, an idea I have is simply using a small paint brush a putting small marks in the field of different colors to represent rocks, field debris and the such. Just a few ideas
I bought one of the plowed fields shown in the Walthers catalog that is made in Germany. All they did was strip the paper off one side of corrugated cardboard like boxes are made of, and spray some kind of thick brown paint over it. You could probably do that at home if you can figure out a way to strip the paper off one side of a box. Maybe soaking it would work.
Here is what I done (HO scale) spread wet drywall mud, using pinking shears I cut a strip of plastic and dragged it through the wet plaster to make the furrows. Let dry. Spread white glue over the plaster then sprinkled onto the area dried real dirt, Let dry.
Once dry the field color looked too uniform so I colored the field with powered chalks, dark colors for low areas, lighter browns for the higher areas, sprayed with dull coat. Very happy with the results.
Added a tree and some leaves on the ground underneath.
Martin
I know I’m the stupid new guy, so I’ll say it first. Why not use real dirt? I mean you could use real dirt and drag an HO scale harrowing disk through it. then, maybe spray it with something so it will retain it’s shape. Just a thought.
I used the edge of a short section of track to drag through the drywall mud and I am happy with that part of it. My wife even asked if it was supposed to be a plowed field before it was painted. My problem has been the colors. I started airbrushing black close to the surface and only from the “north”. Then I tried a lighter brown from the other three points of the compass. I was going to follow up with light touches of other colors but it never even started to look like soil. I finally went over it with some “Molasses” wall paint I had.
Your idea of using the chalks sounds good. I think I will try to mix up a passable base color and use an ink wa***o darken the low areas and try some chalks for highlights
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Bob’s not as dumb as he says he is. When I need to plunk down bare soil on a layout, I add a wet coat of “tannish” paint, and liberally cover it with real soil (well, clay usually). The texture might be a little out of scale, but you don’t have to worry about trying to paint it properly, and it “looks right”.
I have a few probles with using real dirt. I work hard outside to encourage all sorts of little creatures to live in the soil. I add lots of composted manure and decaying vegatation. I could heat it in the oven to steralize it but from expereance I know that it smells worse than when I burned Brussels Sprouts.
With real dirt I doubt I could get the furrows seen in a field plowed with a moldboard style plow. The color might be right for a field that has dried out for a week after being plowed but If I wanted to keep the rich dark brown of freshly turned soil I would need to paint or keep it wet.
In that case, take a walk. There’s loads of places where you can find soils with a minimum of organic material. I grew up on a horse farm (loads of compost there!) and I could still find spots on that 15 acres where I could get relatively inert soils. One of my favorite collection spots for natural materials is along the sides of gravel roads, where the rock has been crushed into talc. I harvest this stuff, seive it, and use it for my model roads.
Turn the soil into a modeling paste by adding some thinned white glue. Spread it around with a trowel, and shape it as required. To keep the darker, freshly turned color, add some gloss medium to the paste. (I found this trick out mostly through modelling accidents!)
You might check the “Home Center” for potting soil that is less organic(no critters). Might be able to use any excess for other potting applications, and as I recall it is “sterile” without the brussel sprout sideeffects LOL. The things we do for our hobby, and our significant others endure for it!
Will
Fine clay, sand mixed with real or WS soil may work. How about using a notched trowel. They are available in various sizes to suit your scale. If the “V” grooving is too uniform, sand, file, grind and possibly bending the points can add variation. The trowel should work on plaster, joint compound and loose scenery materials. For smaller areas or contours use the putty knife style.
Bob K.