Scenery Tests - How It Was Made

As promised, in this post I'll detail the steps taken to do the test board:
- first, I got a nice foam board, about 1 cm thick
- the flex track piece was cut to length, and the sleeper strips were sprayed in 3 coats as previously described here; the track was then assembled
- using the same railroad tie color as before, the track was sprayed from both sides, in two thin coats; no masking was necessary since no paint reached the visible area of the ties; this step is critical, since if left untreated, the already "pre-rusted" Tillig track would still shine and ruin every picture with light bouncing off the sides of the rails
- part of the foam board where vegetation was to be placed got painted with some brown (water-based "Oskar" pigment code 11); this is done to assure that if the next layer of "earth" placed on top doesn't cover everything, at least the white foam will not be visible through
- the earth texture was done inspired by Joe Fugate's article here (the magazine is free, it can be downloaded right there and i highly recommend it) - after the brown pigment dried, the area was airburshed using a mix of water and a couple of drops of liquid detergent, up to the point that everything is wet, but not as to form small poodles. The earth formula was then applied using a tea strainer (9.5 grames plaster, 0.5g burnt sienna, 2g orange and 0.3g black). Be sure to use dry pigment, not anything else (actually the brown water-based pigment was initially bought to try Joe's method, as at the time I wasn't aware that different kind of pigments existed, obviously the outcome of that experiment was pretty messy). The formula is applied just as long as the grains turn wet when they hit the board - no point to continue applying if they remain dried. After, I airburshed again the watery solution, somehow from above and horizontal, as to mist the whole area and to assure the plaster would bind. The zip texturing method is quite complex, eg by varrying the amount of water you can obtain a muddy look for the earth, so what i did first was to test different formulas on foam boards divided in small squares by using a crayon. I discovered that if not enough plaster is used, the color might be just right, but the whole thing would not adhere to the surface. So once again, check the article and do your own tests.
- a standard ballast foam piece was used to get the track to the correct height, and along with the track, was glued to the foam board
- Tillig dark ballast (86606) was applied on the track, and after it looked right, an eyedropper was used to soak everything using a combination of water and a few drops of liquid detergent - the liquid detergent has the role of breaking the surface tension, so that water seeps in nicely; after this, the whole procedure is repeated but using a water/glue mix with the ratio 3:1. I found out that when mixing the ballast glue formula, the best "cup" is a plastic bottle cap, since the amount of white glue is not that big. Joe Fugate goes into great detail explaining the method, and also Jon Grant has some nice photos of ballasting, also if you search for his posts you will find more detailed photos and explanations;
- next, on the dried earth formula, special Noch Gras-Master glue was applied using a brush, and a mix of 4,5mm (miniNatur code 004-23) and 6,5mm (miniNatur code 006-33) autumn grass was applied; after this completely dried and any excess grass was recovered, a sheet of paper was used as a mask, cutting out random holes and fixing this with 2 pins over the grass area. A mix of water+liquid detergent and Noch glue (ratio 1:1) was airbrushed over the sheet, so only the defined areas were sprayed, just until the fine mist forms drops on the grass. Then the sheet was removed and the Gras-Master was used again to apply 4,5mm summer grass (miniNatur code 004-22, or Silfor as the brand in known in the US)
- a few weeds were then applied (miniNatur 725-22S) and a flower (miniNatur 998-26S)

This was how half of the board was made, the other one, as the photo shows, remained empty at the time. It was recently done, including the addition of a shrub, and, after the ties are further treated and some more weeds are planted, a new post will cover it in detail.