How smooth is your landscape ?

Model Railroader Layouts and layout building
1

After a week of being up to my elbows in Sculptamold, I am ready to paint and lay ground cover. Before I do that, I wanted some opinions on how smooth folks recommend ground be ? I am looking at mainly hillisde type of terrain and some flat areas. Rocks have been done using normal plaster and molds. Sculptamold doesn’t give a 100% smooth finish, unless you really work it while it is wet. So do most of you end up sanding it, leave it rough. smooth the worst parts ? I am just trying to determine what ends up looking the most realistic. Here’s a couple of pictures of where I am at now.

2

As someone about to enter this stage (hopefully soon), I’m interested in the answers also. The only thing I have to go on is common sense and to me yours looks fine. Looking around at what Mother Nature has done, I don’t see any areas that are smooth, so I don’t think I’m going to try and smooth out things very much except in places where I’ll put structures, yards and the like. Otherwise I like the uneveness (is that a word?). But like I said, I’m new to it also so maybe there are areas that one would want smooth.

Jarrell

3

I use Gypsolite as a “skim coat” over my surfaces, particularly flat ones. Gypsolite is naturally grainy, so it has a more natural look to it. This is particularly useful for large flat areas around yards, etc., when the foam or plywood has no structure at all.

This section was my very first attempt at scenery since my teenage years, back when the Eisenhowers lived at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.

4

The only places that should be absolutly smooth are paved surfaces, building bases and water. A slightly undulating and gritty texture is prefered for open ground. Don’t forget that trees, ground foam, and other foliage will cover up a lot of mistakes.

Nick

5

Nothing is smooth. I add saw dust to Drywall mud to get textures and work hard to not smooth it too much. That is an inpressive mountain you have there, and unless you are a real artist, don’t work too hard at making it look right. The world is random, and your scenery will look better if you are a little careless and sloppy in making scenery. And if you don’t like it, it is easy to do over a part. Splotch on the earth tones, dribble the water and add some dark washes and see what you get. I learned that many thin washes make better colors.

Have fun and be spontaneous, it will look better,

6

Yes, I call it Horseshoe Mountain, for obvious reasons. It is large. It took more than 4 sheets of 2" foam to create and has a removalable lid to work inside (and for derailments). Here’s a look inside with the lid off:

I agree the one thing I am learning most about this hobby is to not worry about mistakes. Just redo them or cover it up. Both work. As an example, I had to cut away foam to fix a chronic derailment problem inside the mountain. So I decided, why not use the oppoortunity to add a way to view trains as they run through the mountain so I ended up cutting away a corner and will put a view window through the facia.

It will be the perfect height for kids.

7

Nature abhors a smooth surface. Even nominally ‘flat’ areas have slope, texture or both:

Newly-plowed earth may be flat, but the furrows aren’t. For HO, break every other tooth out of a coarse-toothed comb. (After the crop gets growing, who can tell?)

There is always some gradient around a construction site, for drainage. The same is true of well-designed parking lots. Ill-designed parking lots aren’t surface-plate flat, either. (Check your neighborhood auto dealers and shopping malls after a rainstorm, and see where the puddles are - or aren’t.) The same goes for railroad yards, but it may not be as easy to spot.

When nature has been allowed to take its course, erosion creates obvious and less obvious paths for precipitation to run off. Level ceases to exist very quickly if there is a significant drop from the survey point you are checking to the nearest natural water course.

Let us not enter the wonderful world of plate tectonics, which raises mountain ranges, causes mountains to build themselves, then collapse (think Mt. St. Helens,) allows streams to form waterfalls and, left alone for long enough, creates features like the Grand Canyon. If you want to model really rough country, pick your prototype and get lots of photos of it, or, if it’s reasonably close to home, grab your camera and go.

As for my own scenery - at the moment it consists of inverted mesas (cookie-cut plywood.) When I get to the point that my (to be) hidden track is reliable enoough to be concealed, my prototype is a river valley (canyon) with near-vertical cross-sections - to the point that I won’t need to paint any backdrop because it would be above the valence line.

It’s also covered with cedars, except where it’s been logged over. That’s going to be fun.

Chuck.

8

That cutaway is one good idea. How are you going to landscape inside? I’ll be waiting a pic. The TV artist always says, “There are no mistakes, only happy accidents.”

Have you tried carving rock formations directy in the foam. I am practicing and having some good luck.

9

Other than painting the foam black, I haven’t decided on how to landscape inside. I am not planning on lighting it and just let the lights from the trains be the lumination. I might put down some grass turf on the plywood in the corner and plant a couple of trees. I am open to ideas. I wasn’t planning on trying to do the true inside of a mountain. Not sure how fun rocks and dirt would be.

10

While few areas are absolutely flat, a very great deal depends on the particular location/region you are modeling as to how rough it should appear. In general, most real terrain isn’t nearly as rough or steep as many modelers depict it. Likewise, remember that we usually view our layouts from several hundred scale feet in the air and this should reduce how apparent minor undulations or roughness in the terrain may appear. Above all, don’t make mountainsides too steep. Except in the case of solid rock, a little thing called the angle of repose keeps slopes typically to no more than 40 degrees. You can get away with rather more than that when modeling but you can’t have 75 degree dirt slopes and expect them to look believable. Vertical “tree-wall” hillsides are a real non-no, seen too often on layouts.

For the best effect, slightly undulating or rolling lands looks the best.

CNJ831

11

I’m just starting the plastering stage in N scale and using (more or less) Joe Fugate’s compound of 1 part cement, 3 parts plaster and 4 parts fine vermiculite. I wasn’t able to get the fine vermiculite straight away so I mixed up a batch with the medium and slapped it on my mountain as an experiment. I have to say it looks really good! Rough and a bit nobby, and grey-brown in colour, which is going to make painting easier. I don’t think I’d use the medium grade for areas where I need a smoother finish - like the walls of cuttings (canyons) or around the yard, but for the wilder back-to-nature areas it’s perfect. The vermiculite is incredibly lightweight too, and bulks up the compound.

(Note that in the photo although the foam is not smooth, the texture of the plaster comes from the vermiculite, not the underlying foam.)