Okay, here’s the scene.
The structures are undergoing refurbishing and kit-bashing. Trees will be added to the left brush, and on the left side of the street will be a long, narrow blacksmith shop/office.
The problem area for me is the open dirt street. It has no texture. My best idea is to stipple a couple of different shades of brown, but I’m afraid it still won’t cut it. Ideas?
Well… how bout some of that Woodland scenics ballast like material that comes in a brown or mud color. You might be able to spread it out somewhere and hammer it with several different shades out of can spray paint and mix it all up, then shaking it into a box with Weathering powder that looks like a birt pile.
What comes out should be a pretty good color for your street. The only problem is that you dont want rocks.
How about plain old plaster? you can kind of roughen a little bit on the top and hit with with various shades of mud and you might be able to work on it off site because your space is well defined before placing it into your town.
Thanks SV you gave me a couple ideas indirectly. There need to be wheel ruts where water pools in runoff areas. There need to be hoof marks in front of hitching rails. Debri against the walks and buildings.
I thought about the ballast, but like you mentioned, there can’t be rocks.
Mylar Ballons have this shine that looks like water, I think there is a picture somewhere on these forums of a horse at a waterhole made of mylar.
If you are going to do hoofmarks, do em at the horse hitches. Dont forget a few… deposits in the center of the street.
Right. Harold has a photo essay on his site. I wasn’t planning anything so elaborate, just a darker color to show dampness.
Lilliputian road apples–brilliant!
You could skim-coat the whole street with Gypsolite. I mix mine up and then squirt in a couple of shots of cheap dark brown acrylic. It thins out and ends up being a light tan. The grittiness of the Gypsolite takes out the flats. Once it’s dry, I use a green wash for grassy areas, but I use a spotty “camouflage” pattern to get away from even-ness. Then I brush on thin white glue and sprinkle WS turf (the browner shades) by hand.
On foam, you can just punch in your wheel ruts and hoof-marks. You can do the same sort of thing with a thin sheet of 1/4-inch foamboard.
SpaceMouse: I like the looks of your scene and your idea of a well used “dirt” street.
I have some rural dirt / gravel roads in my plan and have one dirt street under construction now. This is what I’ve been experimenting with: The first layer is a thin coat of light-weight drywall mud. It doesn’t have to be real smooth and in your case, you could even carve in some ruts, pot holes and such. Next is a heavy coat of an earthtone latex paint which is then covered with real sand / dirt while still wet. The dirt can be manipulated some with tools or fingers before the paint sets. When the paint is dry “old reliable”, white glue and water, seals it up, just like with ballasting. The road / street can now be built up with additional layers, even some different colors (even some vegetation on the not so used trails)…or can be painted / weathered with acrylics.
I “make” various grades of sand by sifting the real stuff. I have different strainers with different size mesh, (even a flour sifter) and just run the sand or earth through them making fine, medium and course.
As suggested above, a fine ballast would do the trick…But sand is a lot cheaper and looks just like sand too! By the way, for my street I’ve been using the finest I have. When I get to some point of completion, satisfaction (remember this is an experiment as of now) I could post a picture.
I’m not familiar with Gypsolite. I’ve already got about 1/8" drywall mud. I figure for the ruts, I’ll carve out a pothole fill it with drywall mud and drive my kid’s hot wheel car through a couple times.
Road apples are good, but you’ll need a boardwalk, hitching posts, water trough, some hay bails, and a few rain barrels. Probably wouldn’t have a lot of deep ruts though as the dirt would be packed pretty hard with all the traffic. Take a look at these pics and the link for details you might use.
www.1880sranch.com/accommadations.htm
This place was not only the local tavern, but the courthouse too!
Thanks Colvin
I have a few dirt roads. I followed a very similar proceedure.
Thanks Phillip.
I have the rain barrels, troughs, boardwalk, hitching rails, etc. covered. What you provide there was invaluable. The two photos of the actual dirt. I think I can duplicate that slight variation in color. The car tracks (wagon tracks) mihgt take some thought. Maybe I can make a paint roller by gluing felt to my kid’s hot wheel car. (I think my kid’s car is going to take one for the gipper.)
A few strategically placed sage brushes might not hurt. Maybe one somewhere in the street and one or two more that have blown up against a wall that faces the prevailing wind. How about a hanging tree out in front of the courthouse for guilty model railroad thieves?
Hey, don’t forget, they’re going to need fire to keep them warm at night, so stack up some firewood or coal on the side of the building.
Got the firewood covered, but keep the details coming. I’m always thinking of things I’ve missed. This not exactly tumbleweed terrain, but I plan some vegetative debri. Phillip here’s the catwalk.
Chip, I have been using Joe’s method of weathering the ballast between the rails. He uses a medium-sized artists brush to ladle a mixture of plaster of paris mixed with a near-equal quantity of tempera powder. You brush that out in a thinnish layer over your ballast, and then spritz with water…no alcohol needed here. My point is that you can use even screened garden soil, something fine and cheap, spread it the way you want, including ruts, fix it with a glue mixture, as we would do the ballast, and then apply the p o p and tempera.
I urge you to try the technique on a small piece of scrap ply, and see if it will be fast and effective for you. The result is quite good, and makes the ballast look stained, but also somewhat “dirty” and filled. This does not detract from the intended appearance of the ballast at all, so if you were to let a first application dry, and then add another, maybe with a different hue, I think you might be pleased.
I would use the putties and spackles and drywall muds for making paved and concrete pad streets and highways. A fine grit with the p o p/tempera added would look more dirt-like, IMO, even a bit dusty…which is probably the effect you seek.
Thanks selector–yup, dusty is good.
Don’t be so quick to judge the ability of the tumbleweeds ability to migrate over long distances. I’ve seen them show up in some pretty out of the way places where I would normally not expect to see them. Is your town in an area where one might expect to find a cactus or two?
No, it is in the Sierra foothills–oak forest. The tumbleweeds would have to travel quite a distance and climb mountain passes. On both sides of this town are dense trees.
OK then if it is the Sierra Foothills, how about giving the dirt a little more iron ore (reddish) content? It might be just the photograph but the color looks washed out. It looks like the forest is pretty dense so I’m guessing the town is pretty high up in the hills and might experience some frosty mornings. Maybe some thin, cracked ice on the street puddles and horse troughs. Maybe an American and Bear Flag republic flag flying out in front of City Hall?
Sorry to disagree…the dirt in the photos, as it appears on my screen, looks quite ruddy, and very nearly overdone. A dissenter.