Monday, April 20, 2009

Monday Module Musings

It's Monday, time to work on the modules some more. Today's efforts focused on adding ground cover and ballast to HO and N modules.


The TTrak-HO module is different from the one in the last post. This one will be The Sheep Pen. If you look carefully, you can see a couple of tracks for a pickup running just behind the track location. The large area to the module's rear, with a greener color, will be the pen. The fence, the sheep, a couple of codgers leaning over to look at them and few details should complete it.

The next are the new 6-foot modules. Today, tee-nuts were glued underneath with epoxy and the first coat of paint applied to the visible surfaces. For this show, I think that a few low mounds of blue foam or Sculptamould to represent open, arid prairie will do. Something cheap and removable for future development. In fact, to point towards that, I have the 'Surveyor Crew' figure set to put out there.
The long term plans for these do involve a scene I've wanted to do for a while, and this will give me the place to do it. What is it? It may be October before it finds its way out.

The Grain Elevator module received grass around the office and weedy ground cover elsewhere. A few details, shrubs and flowers by the office entry, and seal it. Then, just add track and call it done.

The Main Street module got the ground cover treatment, too. I need to make a sidewalk for a building or two.
Finally, the Junction module. For me, this has been a difficult module to add scenery.I finally settled on a low hill running lengthwise. A dry lake is down in front. The story is that the RR first ran a track parallel to hill, spanning the lake. Later, it was decided to make a cut and connect this track to another line the RR had just purchased.
I plan to "streak" the reddish-brown areas with a lighter color to try to represent erosion of the top soil layers down over the revealed deeper dirt.

Sorry, but that's the best I can come up with at this time. Maybe in the future, the lake will have water.
All modules need details, including trees, scrub bush clumps, and, of course, figures and vehicles everywhere. I'm looking for narrow (1/32" I hope) white and yellow tape for road markings.
That's it for Monday, 2009/04/20.

2 comments:

  1. Cool modules! You get a lot done pretty fast! My modules are still gathering dust in the spare room, and I don't think I've done any serious train work in quite a while. You're making me feel guilty!! ;^)

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  2. Don't feel bad, Bliss. I'm "retired" - ha! - so I "should" have more "free" time.

    At least I'm taking a few days off from high school subbing to work on these.

    I needed the mental break, believe me.

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