How do I Start

Hmmm...

I feel a major thread coming on...   

Here's my advice:

In the 1940s and 50s, Lionel's promotional department produced some wonderful material designed to suck their "Christmastime customers" into becoming serious layout-builders (and lifetime customers). Two items stand out: A paperback book called "Model Railroading", and a large-format paperback called "Handbook For Model Builders":

There are hundreds of books in this category, but IMO none are more enjoyable as a mix of nostalgia and practical knowledge than these.

Of course, they are very dated and things have evolved dramatically in the hobby. But if you are interested in scenery for Postwar O-gauge, I think that these books are a wonderful place to learn the basics.

If you have a hobby shop nearby, they will have materials you can buy.  Probably books and/or magazines on the subject, to boot.

Or if no hobby shop, how about a Hobby Lobby?  Most of them tend to have scenery supplies in stock.  Possibly even a book or two on the subject.

There's a lot of different methods for building scenery.  Start searching on the internet, you'd be surprised on what you can find.  You'd also be surprised, but once you figure it out, scenery is not that hard at all.  As I like to tell people, if you can make a pizza, you can do scenery!  

Avanti posted:

Hmmm...

I feel a major thread coming on...   

Here's my advice:

In the 1940s and 50s, Lionel's promotional department produced some wonderful material designed to suck their "Christmastime customers" into becoming serious layout-builders (and lifetime customers). Two items stand out: A paperback book called "Model Railroading", and a large-format paperback called "Handbook For Model Builders":

There are hundreds of books in this category, but IMO none are more enjoyable as a mix of nostalgia and practical knowledge than these.

Of course, they are very dated and things have evolved dramatically in the hobby. But if you are interested in scenery for Postwar O-gauge, I think that these books are a wonderful place to learn the basics.

I bought a well-worn, dog-eared copy of the "Handbook for Model Builders" earlier this year at a train meet, just for kicks and grins.  Plus a cheap price didn't hurt, either.   Copyright 1940 by Lionel (yes, that's right, 1940).

Was I ever blown away.  You think that John Allen or Frank Ellison (of the late 40's and beyond) were pioneers in their fields?  Well, okay, maybe a little bit.   John Allen with his weathering techniques.  Frank Ellison with his theatrical back drops.   But believe it or not, little else of what they did wasn't already mentioned in this book, as far as I'm concerned.  Nor any other author since then.

Don't get me wrong, I really LOVE reading about John Allen and Frank Ellison and their contributions to the hobby.  After reading through THIS particular book though,  I seriously believe that the both of them (and probably a whole lot of other early model railroading pioneers, and all others afterwards) just HAD to have been influenced by this Lionel publication.

Talk about a timeless publication! 

Go to a local hobby shop or train show and talk to the vendors who are selling scenery materials. On line, look at the web sites of Woodland Scenics and Scenic Express.

MELGAR

IMHO, I think the best way to start is to draw out a plan on paper of where you want your streets and roads to be and install those first. Once the streets and roads are in they automatically  create readily defined spaces that you can then look at and decide what goes best in those spaces.

There are lots of ways to make streets and roads. You could draw them in on your felt and then cut away the street area and paint them in with flat black or cement colored paint after masking off the felt areas. About 4 1/2" - 5" wide should be ok for a two-lane street for most 1/43 scale cars and trucks. You could also obtain road material from your local hobby store or on-line from one of the vendors like Scenic Express or Woodland Scenics, as Melgar pointed out. Many people use ordinary roofing material from Lowes or HD that can be cut and glued down. You can use a fine-tipped white paint pen and a ruler to draw in road lines and dashes.

Once the streets and roads are in, you can start defining what scenery features would look best in a particular area. I would then start adding trees and shrubs where you think they look appropriate. Once the streets and roads and trees and shrubbery are in, you can move on to larger projects like hills, tunnels, mountains, rivers, etc. 

On-line vendors like Scenic Express or Woodland Scenics also have a lot of "how-to" videos on their sites which are very helpful.

along with the excellent advice above I'll add my thought which was not mentioned yet.  When I'm thinking of scenery the very first things I think of are: what season do I want to model, and what components do I want in that scene.

- walt

Just because you're retired does not mean you need to think that way!  What am I talking about?  For a moment go to your layout and say to yourself I'm TEN years old and I want a mountain!  Don't over think getting started.  Have some fun.  Make some mistakes!  Be ten for a while and guess what, the scenery will happen, it will get better, and OH yeah you'll have some fun at the same time!    My 2 cents, spend wisely!  Russ

I highly recommend this book:

Every one of Dave's photos in the book is worth 1000 words:

Amazon carries it. eBay merchants sell it.

I highly recommend the Black Diamond Railroad series of DVD/Bluray videos.   They are great how-to's covering design, bench work, track laying, wiring, and scenery of a great hi-rail scale layout.   The videos are also very entertaining.   The only ones I've ever seen that merge model video with real-life highlighting the degree of realism achievable with O-gauge.

http://www.toytrainsontracks.com/

You've already been looking at some layouts here on the forum.  For now you have a functioning layout with some basic ground cover and structures.  Before you go much further do some further reading here on the forum to determine the level of realism you are going to strive for on your 7x10 layout.  The felt will serve nicely for a more traditional look or toylike look, like the grass paper of old.  For more realistic scenery you'll have to go for different colors and textures of ground cover materials available from your hobby shop, Woodland Scenics, Scenic Express, from craft stores like Michaels, AC Moore, Hobby Lobby or available from nature.  If you go the realistic route your structures and accessories will need to weathered and possibly re-painted to give you that feel.  

I'm with the Dave Frarly crowd.  He has a series of books and DVD's.  All excellent and devoted to landscape. Lots of detailed how to do.  Materials, I like Scenic Express.  Buildings, I like Menards and Woodland Scenic's.

Lots of good advice above.  I agree with the love for the old books.  However, there a lot of newer techniques such as using foam insulation board, that they don't cover. 

Allen Keller's website (Railroad Academy?) has a wide variety of DVDs on all aspects of layout construction and you can frequently get bundle deals.  The videos are oriented toward scale modeling, but many of the techniques are transferable.  

You can find how-to books and back issues of magazines at train meets - they're a tough sell, so be sure to get a really good price.

If you live near the TCA museum, they have a lot of older how-to books for sale.  They might sell them mail order - call and ask. 

Congrats on your retirement! I was in your shoes 4 years ago (not retired, but starting scenery) so here are my tips -

I started with woodland scenics products which are very easy to use. I also use scenicexpress products which are equally nice.  I always try to support local hobby shops whenever possible. Ebay sometimes has "lot" listings of half used containers of ballast, turf, etc which is a great way to get a lot of different products at a reasonable cost. Save all packaging supplies, cardboard, odds and ends because it always comes in handy when creating scenery. Youtube is a great resource.  Don't be afraid to fail - when I first started casting rock molds and painting them I realized there is a learning curve but I persisted on. On my layout which is slightly larger than yours, I spent a lot of time (almost to a fault) trying to envision the scene. I found it helpful to focus on one section at a time. Lastly, the scenery forum here was always my first stop when researching.

What I did once you get your ideas, is build a "palette" to work with. I had a couple odd shaped pieces of plywood I used. (Small enough to hold up to spots on your layout)  Paint different colors on it for ground , grass etc. I also glued different colors of ground cover and grass. Marked what each was. I could look at these in different situations to see what I liked for scenery. I also did this with rock molds and put different stains on the same sample. Looking at the "bottles" or bags was not always accurate. Have fun. There is a learning curve.. but it is fun to see what you will create from your "memories"! Because of physical limitations I built many items on my work bench and put into place on the layout. ENJOY

Here is a picture and you can see building on my work bench. I have several layers so I build the vertical wall laying down flat which was easier to decorate and then set it up between the layers and blended. I used every thing TAXMAN listed. Excellent choices.

My thread (continuing saga…) covers the entire process from ballasting, ravines, mountains, bridges, etc. etc. All I can say is get started doing something. Don't let "White paper syndrome" stop you from doing something. You'll learn as you go. Whether people believe it or not, my current layout is the first time I did scenery on anything since I was 13 years old and building a mountain out of chicken wire and paper maché. Everything I've done and documented was learned in real time right now. So start simple, but start. I know too many people that get hung up on trying to do something profound so they end up doing nothing.

ChiloquinRuss posted:

Just because you're retired does not mean you need to think that way!  What am I talking about?  For a moment go to your layout and say to yourself I'm TEN years old and I want a mountain!  Don't over think getting started.  Have some fun.  Make some mistakes!  Be ten for a while and guess what, the scenery will happen, it will get better, and OH yeah you'll have some fun at the same time!    My 2 cents, spend wisely!  Russ

You can say that again-It doesn't have to be a manned mission to the moon.When we were kids we balled up newspaper taped it down and covered it with paper Moche. Then we painted it and sprinkled leaves that we ground up in my moms blender.

We didn't care-we were having the times of our lives-we could barley sleep. Nick

A couple of decades ago, I had been buying some scenery books and studying up for all I was worth.  Then, every time I worked up the courage, I went to get started building some scenery, and proceeded to fall flat on my face.  Where do I start???  Back to doing nothing for awhile, then work up some more courage and try it all over again.  Lather, rinse, repeat.

One day, I stopped at an out-of-town hobby shop.  Looking around, I saw a Woodland Scenics scenery diorama kit.  According to the box, it contained everything I needed to build a little 1' x 2' (or thereabouts) diorama, thus teaching me to do some scenery.  I thought it was kinda' pricey ($30 bucks), but decided I wasn't getting any younger.  I went ahead and bought it, took it home, and proceeded to build it according to the instructions.

I built the thing, found out it was really a piece of cake, and have been doing scenery ever since.  I'd highly recommend something like this to anybody wanting to learn to do scenery.  Best thirty bucks I ever spent. 

Picture courtesy of modeltrainstuff dot com.  But it may as well be a picture of the diorama I built.  I've still got my little diorama, and it looks virtually identical to this factory picture! 

Another source for a lot of product is Scenic Express a forum sponsor.  There is a very good catalog.    Or on-line catalog. 

The Scenic Express website also has several (How to do) tutorials.  

I have a lot of scenic express ballast and scenery products in here. Great products and the Catalog is a valuable source of ideas.