I think this is a Chooch tunnel portal left over from my last layout. I added some smoke weathering, but never actually used it.
The Iphone makes it appear a lot better than it is. In real life it is a hideous tan-flesh color.
I need some painting ideas, show me your tunnel portals.
Woodland Scenics hydrocal timber portal painted with ‘burnt umber’ some yellow and tan mixed:
Does it look like it’s well-treated with creosote? [:P]
A W/S hydrocal concrete portal, stained with some burnt umber and slate gray:
It’s a double-wide portal, but my track separation on that curve and the longer steamers meant I felt better sawing it in half and adding a plug of extruded styrofoam insulation board where the ‘keystone’ might have been. You can just make out the edges of the ‘stone’ plug. Engine black smudging using a paint brush for the smoke effects.
Finally, a stone portal, with the keystone. The stain was burnt umber with slate grey, some white, and a whiff of yellow:
Both of these were done the same basic way. Base of light to medium gray, thin black wash(es), thick black wash for the smoke effect (holding the portals upside down), then drybrushes of white and light gray.
Al’s Portal by Michael, on Flickr
Tunnel work by Michael, on Flickr
Mine is carved styrofoam, covered with drywall mud.
Mike.
Here’s one I scratchbuilt from stained stripwood years ago:
It’s meant to represent portals similar to this one in the Wind River Canyon in Wyoming:
Selector are we talking oil based stain?
Oops, no! Cheapo acrylic craft paints, the Plaid variety from WalMart.
I am surprised that more pictures have not been posted.
I am confident that I can paint and weather portals. Where I am having some trouble is fitting them in because I have clearance issues with adjacent terrain. The biggest problem is that in a couple spots track curves into a tunnel after running parallel to a wall. Setting the portal so that it is straight accross the track extends the hill/wall on the other side of the portal farther than I would like.
I would like to see pictures if you have something similar.
-Photographs by Kevin Parson
I hope this was a help.
-Kevin
Thank you.
Does it have to be a train tunnel? I bought a hydrocal casting of a tunnel portal from either Wodland Scenics or Walthers. It was about an inch thick, and that wouldn’t work for the space I wanted to put it in. So. I used liquid latex and created a thin mold from the portal. That worked very well. I don’t have a picture of the train tunnel I used it for, but I like the casting so much I made another couple of them for a small bridge over a stream.
A bit later, I finished the scene.
I did these with a Rustoleum textured speckled tan rattle can spray, and used India Ink to hightlight the cracks and gaps.
I did something similar and used india ink washes. That portal gotten broken in the move and I don’t know what happened to the original portal. I never took pictures of my old layout.
Wooden coffee stirrers glued to a thin corrugated reinforced cardboard backing. Smoke staining done using a 4B (?) pencil, smudged by finger.
Cheers, the Bear.[:)]
Gotten broken? Habla ingles?
Anyway I had two walls made of the same material. You can see the original meh brown color on the edge. This is version 1.0 This pic was taken outside in bright sunlight. Inside it looks darker.
It needs an india ink wash to fill the crevices. I also need to dry brush some white to simulate guano. I used mixes of Walmart Apple paints. Diluting the paint too much causes spotty coverage.
Nothin’ fancy here…
…just a plain “concrete” portal
…and another similar one at the other end…
…along with a beneath-the-layout view showing very little of an actual tunnel…
Wayne
Did you paint the caps on the WS portals and walls in a concrete color? It does appear that the castings have concrete on top of the stone but I wasn’t sure. I am going to use those and was looking for pictures of them but your pictures are the only ones I found installed. Those that I have found are the stock WS product photos and they appear to be the same color on the cap as the stone.
Here is my almost finished portal. I’m the OP and you can scroll up to see what I started with. This was all done with cheap craft paint and india ink.
I think that looks great Henry. You’ve really captured the weatherd stone color perfectly!
Mike.
The lighter gray you see there is actually the base color I started with on the entire thing. As I applied washes of darker colors, I simply skipped on applying the washes to the caps.
Thanks. That certainly simplifies the process.
