I’m pretty new and I’ve been building a layout for a few weeks now. It’s a modular layout and I have the benchwork, 1" foam laid down, roadbed glued down, track laid and wiring all complete. Now, I’m trying to figure out what the next step is. I would assume it’s scenery but does that mean I need to start painting the foam board? If so, what paint do I use. It’s going to be a relatively flat layout so I’m just trying to get a farmland appearance going on, but not sure what direction to go.
I would have painted the board first with some latex paint close to the color you want your grass to be or a tan or light brown. That way you dont have to worry about painting around the roadbed and track
Unless you’re modeling “Auntie Emm” country, even most flatlands will have scenery / some topigraphical contours. Figure a plan for your scenery, any water, rivers, streams, creek or dry river bed. You can add short bridges over these areas that cross your trackage. In conjuction w/ water features if used, layout structures, roads, and industries. You can cut/ carve the foam for depressed spots and glue down additional foam for any raised areas. I would do this even though it may be just simple rolling pasture, grassland etc. Don’t worry if the foam edges aren’t perfect, various methods of placing plastercloth, soaked paper towel, screening etc, can be coated w/ plaster, Durabond, Sculpamold or a combination of these. This “Ground goop” is just a mixture of various materials that is spread/ troweled on for the scenery base. There are many ways to come up w/ this mixture Durabond, perlite, durabond, coloring, even sawdust has been added for some texture… I prefer plastercloth or paper towel dipped in soupy Hydrocal mix.
As far as painting, wait until you’re satisfied with the scenery base. Then you should paint w/ flat latex that will be close to the “ground/ earth” coloring of the area to be modeled. The reason for earth color, is that as you apply the scenery ground foam, grasses, weeds, brush and trees, you can control the anount applied to still show- though to dirt or show bare spots. If you paint green, it will be difficult to show any depth to the scenery and then brown/ earth and bare spots will have to be done. The earth base is also good starting point for dirt or gravel roads. Of course these features are done sprinkling on sand, ballast etc, Paved roadways, parking lots can be done w/ sheet styrene, plaster, Durabond or Duham’s Water Putty. I don’t know why w/ such better products, some use reg DW joint compound. Long drying time, will crack if not done in many thin layers and is so soft once dried is usless to me. It needs to be sealed/ painted completely, any mois
I used pretty much the technique described above-- carve the foamboard, one thing I do is fill in cracks etc in foamboard with a paper mache material called Celluclay, latex paint (or I could used acrylic craft paint if I don’t need a gallon bucket of wall paint in dirt color), sprinkle Woodland Scenics ground foam, etc. This scene was built in 3 or 4 hours…
A lot of good answers above. Cheap, interrior, latex paint is fine to use. Let the size of your layout determine whether you need a quart or gallon. Some folks thin it a little, I did about a 2:1 and did not feel it held the foam I sprinkled on it when it was wet as well as the straight paint. Since I did mine, I have seen a video showing spreading white glue onto the wet paint before adding the scenic material. Might have improved my adhearance.
While you are doing other things, run your trains, run your trains, run your trains. This will test your track and wiring. Much easier to fix a problem before all your scenery is in place.
Your basic problem here is that you’re assuming that there’s only one way to skin the cat. Pick something that your layout is missing. Ballast, scenery, structures, whatever you want can be your next step. Sometimes the progression will be obvious – it doesn’t do you much good to paint the foam board if you’re then going to make hills etc. on top of it, and it’s probably not a good idea to plant trees before you’ve landscaped, but if you really want to, that’s okay. And even if you don’t plant the trees today, you can still make them if you want. Don’t be afraid to learn by doing. Model railroading has unlimited Mulligans.
Personally, I use Sculptamold to create my landscape, with carved 1" foam to create larger hills if necessary. I paint the whole thing with cheap latex interior paint; I’m currently using a Glidden in Nutmeg Brown, because it was on sale at Home Depot. I buy it a quart at a time, and get big bags of Sculptamold at Michael’s using the 50% off coupons.
Just remember what a previous poster said. There is no such thing as perfectly flat ground, unless it has been bulldozed and graded that way by man. I would decide where your structures and roads are going to go, and at least put a template there before you make your terrain too hilly, though.
