Gedward

....Beep! Beep!

It's somewhat confusing at the moment because the green clay is actually quite close to the local colour in places. But anyway have made a start on the left hand side of the terrain and tor.

Kicking off the painting stage with this palette. May add some other colours along the way, but this should get me mostly there. So the idea here is to paint the backscene and the furthermost terrain. Hoping that this will help to blend the two together. But this is all an experiment, so I expect I'll make changes along the way. I will add scaled down talus, crumb and ground scatter where appropriate. Then coming forward, using very fine static grass.

Read my lips, I am not building a diorama. And I'm not moving to 7mm. 😎

No reason at all. Because I'm building a fictional diorama, I had a much larger search area available to me. I searched Exmoor, Dartmoor, every blimming moor. 😀 As I said in my opening post, for me, sticking to a prototype is far too limiting and frustrating unless you have the space of Heaton Lodge. "We want to be free to do what we want to do."

On the subject of bad weather, I'll be dialling down the saturation, as I'm after more moody than sunny.

This whole diorama is based on this library image, which I've now purchased.

The background terrain is complete in terms of modelling. Tomorrow I'll get started oil painting the rocks and furthermost areas. As the boulders are so small I'll add them apply them separately like adding ballast to tracks.

I've read somewhere of grating coloured pencils or crayons. Although not tried it myself.

You call it that, I call it planning. 😀

Another session on the moors. On the right, we can see where the hot clay was applied direct from the oven. And on the left where I've been carving and adding the various size boulders.

I did a number of tests with various plasters. But went with the harder grade of clay in the end. So well on the way to adding detail. Both adding and subtracting clay to this as it progresses. Then after a coat of PVA, I'll get started painting.

Already starting to look like it's been there years!

Yep, the green stuff is Chavant NSP clay. It's a professional plasticine. The next stage will be dental plaster to achieve finer detail. I didn't use plaster on Bovey Tor. But found it very easy to carve the bricks on the shed.

Well I've spent most of today on Bodmin Moor, but getting there I think. Once the rest of the scene is at this stage, I'll cover the rocks with dental plaster and carve them back. Like I did with the bricks on the shed.

Thanks Silas, I shall indeed keep the updates coming. Will no doubt help me down the road. If someone asks how did you do that? And I can't for the life of me remember. 😎

Starting with the library image I purchased. I gridded it up in PS. Then scaled it up on tracing paper and this is used as a guide for placement of the main elements. As we're all aware, lots of editing needed to make it work.

Anyway, that is the main reason for this project. Hoping to find a way to blend an oil painted backscene and the model. When planning Bovey Tor, I looked at using a photographic backscene. There are some really good ones out there. Then I considered taking some panoramic shots and using Photoshop's stitching facility. But in the end I decided to paint it myself based on a library photo. That way I could control the content, the composition and most importantly, the colour and values. For me, the type of greens used in the landscape is equally as important as the green used on a GWR loco.

Simple is as Simple Does.

Yesterday I completed the baseboard. And today getting stuck into the fun bit, landscape building. Starting with a 110 cm Lack shelf, I've now extended the depth to 45 cm on the L/H edge narrowing to 40 cm on the R/H edge. Using a lot of the past experience gained from Bovey Tor. So starting with a bunch of grey foam and the hot wire cutter. To build up the basic landscape form. After that I'll use either clay or plaster to finesse the contours. The big difference is that I painted the backscene first before, but I'm doing the reverse this time round.

Look away now if you’re a bit squeamish. 😂

Of course it does! It’s all about the details. Lovely work.

I think the signs are bedding much more than before. 👍🏼

Morning Rob, Thanks so much. I'm quite pleased with it. But... Because it's my first in 7mm, a lot of this I'm doing for the first time. Also using new materials like the copper sheet for the roof and hardware. So I decided to re-do the roof as I wasn't 100% happy with it. 😎