St James's Station

I've been making trees for the layout today, on my last visit to Lord St Junction I came home with a couple of boxes of Supertrees sagebrush pieces.

That's about 30 various sized trees done.
The smallest is about 3cms and the biggest is about 10cms tall. It's like Hanging Christmas cards over the fireplace, but baby trees instead. I'm really happy with them. I used 100mls of Artists Matte Medium and 700mls of warm water to soak the pieces of Supertrees Sagebrush.
The Woodlands scenics scatter products I am using are amazing. So fine and light.
T1346 Fine Turf weeds (dark green in colour) and T1349 Blended Turf Green Blend (medium green in colour). I'm scattering the dark colour underneath to give a shadow effect and the lighter colour on top to bounce the light.
I used a small double pet food tray to catch the material that hasn't stuck, that way when I'm finished I can reuse it.
I'm also using a small bag of Noch Laub or leaves, just to try and get a few different types of foliage effects.

 

It's Christmas in July!

 

NO She was home and I did it as a Surprise for her before I cooked dinner which was after I cleaned the house, mopped the floors and did all the washing. Nice try mate.

 

So last week was quite a productive one for me as well, with a lot of work done on a batch of Dapol OO figures that I've had sitting around for the last 7 years. All I can say is thank goodness I'm not doing N gauge.
I've used Humbrol enamels for the bodies and Vallejo Acrylics for the faces. The blue undercoat was because I had excess blue paint in my airbrush at some point and rather than waste it I seemed to think it would be a good idea to prime them in bright blue. Bzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz wrong. This was a mistake.I should have primed them with grey primer which enhances the final colours. Well live and learn.
Here are some photos of the painting at various stages. This last lot now takes me to well over 100 figures hand painted. I'm not sure what I will do with these ones, I may just sell them to anyone who's interested, but NOT on Ebay or Egouge.com.au as I now call it.

You will notice that these two sprues are the same figures. But with different colours you get two very different sets of figures....

 

This guy in the yellow pants and red shirt is one of my favourites. He's a busker, possibly a juggler and I'm going to try and make him a set of flaming torches using a nano led.
Beneath him are another two favourites. I'm really happy with the foreman's leather jacket and boots. The chap with the bowler hat and red waistcoat has come up a treat as well and I love his ruddy red cheeks!

 

Another example of identical sprues but different results.

 

Kimbo wrote:

Clearly you were using a pair of binoculars on that day, for as you well know I am a eunuch, and wear the codpiece only on special occasions.

 

Thanks Gary, I'm quite happy with them. I have ten or so Modelu figures to finish off and then I can start planning which ones I will used in the Cameo competition.

 

Chris, feel free to send them to me, I'd me more than happy to paint them for you. I'm starting to use the Vallejo acrylics now so it means I can take them with me when I go away for work.
36hrs in Darwin will become very productive.

 

Plenty more work done today on the trees and I had a helper in the form of my 8 year old James.He was great and we now have about 60 trees in various sizes. I tried making some with the Noch Laub or Leaf scatter material. They are very good and far superior to the Woodland scatter ones. Even my wife was mildly impressed with the results. I sealed the trees with an Artists Fixative. Hairspray would do the same I guess. I literally have green thumbs.......and fingers....... I should have worn latex gloves.
The soccer net becomes a drying net.





2 Noch leafed trees on the left. 1 Woodland scenic scatter on the right

 

I also tried the Noch 'laub' or leaf material on some rubberised horse hair and it really looks great. But you can be the judge. The Woodlands scatter also works well on the lichen that I have as well, making a very quick and easy hedgerow, (it's at the back of the photo on the right hand side.