Not Happy with Scenery

It looks good to me.  You are doing a good job.  Doing scenery can be frustrating especially if you try and do a whole layout all at once.  Take small areas and work them for awhile.  Then move on.  As your skills get better you'll find what works for you and you can always go back.  Scenery is NEVER done it is ALWAYS a work in progress.    One of my tricks is to use an EMPTY toilet paper tube and use it like a telescope to view the area I am working.  It blocks out all but what I need to see.  Errors jump out at you when you can't see the whole layout.  Little things like buildings with NO foundations or vehicles with one wheel in the air, etc,.  Have fun, and seriously I like where you're headed, looks good.  Keep at it!  Russ

I like both the old and new....with a little more leaning to the old.  I think you just need to keep going and add a layers until you get the look you want.

Alan

Here's one perspective. Perhaps a blending of the old and new layouts would be more to your liking. What I mean is, you were generous with the green foliage, esp. trees, on the older layout. That made it look rich and more realistic, IMHO. Foliage, esp. green, helps soften the effect of all the hard edges of buildings, no matter how handsome the buildings may be. Foliage adds contrast and color variety, and variety in shapes. In real life, IMO, any vista is better and more interesting - even a simple backyard - with trees and low foliage accenting the buildings. So, if you saved any of the foliage from the Old layout, I suggest you consider using them to enrich what you have so far on the new.

For example, in these scenes I crafted, you may agree that the foliage adds significantly to the overall effect.

FrankM.

Layout Refinements

Thanks for the tips. I agree some more foliage does help after you all point it out and I stare at the photos a bit. I was very happy with the scenery on the old layout but I tore it down solely to repair many deficiencies in the track that would be very difficult to retro-fit into the old layout. 

My idea was going for a "cleaner" looking layout as well. As I've mentioned, I'm very picky about transition areas such as track ballast to scenery, etc. I want it to look absolutely perfect and perhaps my expectations are a bit overboard. I also felt an "all green" layout needed some color, hence the fall trees. Those will stay but I'll probably order a pack of green trees to mix it up. I didn't save much in the way of scenery from the old layout. 

Frank,

Thanks for the photos and tips. Always admired your layout. I think having a second set of eyes to look at what you have helps a lot in picking out little things to change, fix, etc. 

Thanks for the idea on the retaining wall...that shouldn't be to hard to build with existing ties and some glue and I can work the scenery around it. My LHS recently tore down their very well done layout so I also took photos of it before it came down for some inspiration. Having texture, I think, helps a lot. As I mentioned, I did a small test area of coarse turf, etc. Just checked on it and it came out pretty good, at least compared to what was there before. I'll cruise the scenic express website and see what there is to see. 

Thanks Frank. Ever use this stuff from Scenic Express? 

Matt,

This the Adirondack blend alongside the track. Lots of texture, bits of wood, etc. It's on the dark side so blending it with some lighter coarse turf adds some life to it. Frank's list of WS coarse turf colors and Brennan products is really all you need.

Jim

Jim, 

Thanks for the "thumbs up" to the blend. Thanks for the picture as well...looks great. I'll order a tub of it. 

Matt,

It could be you're cramming too much into too little space. We all have space limitations (some more than others). You might try having fewer buildings on the layout so you can have more "transition" space between scenes. Having the front door of a church several feet from a train track is not very prototypical.

I would highly recommend you try working on a few small dioramas to gain some experience and "feel" for the process and choice of colors, etc. I also highly recommend any of Dave Frary's scenery books for reading.

Matt:

Looks great to me.  Both old and new.  I would not take apart.  You can figure out what you want to do over time and add to it or fill in the areas (like one person suggested above).

You certainly don't want to use "fine" products as primary ground cover.  However, it is very useful as a "finishing" material--applied unevenly over coarser base material in order to achieve highlights, "shadow" effects, and variations in texture.  It is also useful for "distance" effects, such as this flat:

Matt,

First I think your current scenery is great and while I may be new to the hobby I think green carpet would be a cop-out. MO. Like you I am extremely picky about scenery. I use a miter saw to cut my road bed for cryin out loud!

I like desert scenes and will eventually be going for a desert sand and rocks look. Found some stuff at Lowes for a good price on line for refinishing counter tops. You lay down a base then sprinkle on chips then scrape and sand to smooth finish. Ta da, looks just like desert sand but without the sand. Or at least that's the plan. . .

Scott

I placed an order from Scenic Express this morning for a nice sized bucket of Adirondack turf, coarse foliage, a BIT of fine turf ( ) and more WS trees. Got some green deciduous and pine trees to mix up the color a bit. Granted the WS trees may not be the most realistic, I like them and the bulk pack is budget friendly. Plus, the thicker foliage reminds me of many of the trees here at home in the summer. I've used the trees, or similar that Frank uses but found them to be VERY delicate and I broke a LOT of them. I have a bit of a picture in my head of sprucing this up, lots of coarse foliage and some of the blend in spots, maybe more fine turf around the church to give a more "manicured" lawn.

I think just having texture is a HUGE thing. I've got some old tubular track to rust up in another attempt at an abandoned railroad and will make a batch of Sculptamold to make a few more hills. I like Frank's suggestion of a retaining wall....I will file that away for another day. 

Leon: Click HERE. .....there is a prototype for everything!

I can't help you with scenery construction tips, but I can offer a suggestion on realistic scenery. I'm out in socal, but I was just back east visiting relatives during fall color.

In some of the photos, you have trees with fall color leaves sitting in green fields. This situation isn't likely in the real world for 2 reasons:

1) Deciduous trees are in the process of losing leaves during the fall season. There would be leaves on the ground beneath the trees (probably mostly brown, but some red, orange, yellow) almost like a shadow.

2) Although it is possible the trees would be located in an evergreen ground cover, if a cold weather area is being modeled, it is quite likely the undergrowth would be losing leaves or turning brown as well.

Regarding the leaf "shadow" mentioned in the first point, you would see a similar shadow underneath a flowering tree in the spring or summer, but the shadow would consist of fallen flowers.

Looks good!

Bob

Hi Duncan, Thanks for your approval. For the front, which you saw in that photo as part of a whole brownstone townhouse, it can possibly still be found at dslshops.com along w/ explanation about how to trim, paint, etc. them. The sides and backwall came from a variety of other sources collected over the years.

As per your request, here are a few other shots of my uses of that same front.

(If you would like to see even more examples, you would need to go to NJ Hi-Railers to see their layout, since most of the brownstone scenes I crafted are now part of their layout, and I feel it would be for them to show, not I.)

Thanks again for the interest. I hope this helps you in your decisions.

FrankM.