Earlier in the year I was in the Mancave looking at the changeover between the 3D model and the backscene. Today’s seen quite a change..

As we’re getting into the Autumn I spend a good amount of time looking at the scenery around me, it’s definitely my favourite season.

Regularly bike riding a particular route allows me to watch the change of the season and it’s long been a desire to effectively capture it. Today saw me ‘plant’ the rear tree grouping along roughly 5/6th’s of the layouts length. These are Woodland Scenics armatures with three colours, car undercoat black and grey, and a wash of acrylic burnt umber to put a bit of warmth into the overall blend. I want to achieve a see through appearance, so the use of pastiche and scatter material is helping with transparency to the backscene.

The backscene is currently sheets of mounting card with various profiles and colours/tones sprayed on it for testing, to get the right overall colour balance. The lighting rig needs to be designed and fitted too so I anticipate a bit of additional work with colouring once that’s defined and fitted.

In natural light the colour so far looks effective, so I’ll continue until the rear of the layout is completed and then fix the backscene and lighting rig. I anticipate the overall depth of the layout increasing by a couple of inches to reduce shadowing on the backscene and a little extra foreground lighting. Then it’s final fix of the bridge, view blocks, and the small coppice at the right hand end to be replaced. So far, so good..

On the subject of ‘good’, Geoff Forster’s back writing again. Some readers will be familiar with the Llangunllo blog and its inspirational capture of the Welsh borderlands. If you liked that, you’ll like this:

Off the Beaten Track

If you’re not seen it before, take some time for it now, it’s worth it.