A layer of plaster and a dab of color

There's always a long pause between updates, but things have been happening, albeit slowly. Mainly on the South Bend section of the layout as that is the closet to being a layout. I've moved forward with mountain building, and finally got the courage to attempt to carve the foam and lay down some of that sweet plaster cloth I bought last year. With the help of a tub of wall spackle, this is the ending result:

                        

 Looks kinda sloppy, but its my first time doing this so I'll take it

Definitely wasn't feeling confident in it once I had finished and it had all dried, but after slapping on some color, it actually doesn't look too bad. at least for a first go. I got some plaster goo on the ship, but hey, nothing a spot of paint cant hide. I also got some retaining walls from a company called Chooch Enterprises. Its a rubbery silicone sheet thing with a self adhesive back that you can slap on where needed. I didn't trust the glue it came with so I spread on some of my trusty adhesive caulk and we were in business. I needed 2 sheets, but I bought 2 different styles by accident, and left an ugly looking seam between them, but since a building is going to be directly in front of that part I'm not too worried.
The next step is to get some ground cover down. I'm thinking kinda shrubby and gravely like a cutting or cliff since to me it looks more like a little piece of a larger mountain. So I'm gonna go light on the trees, heavy of the scrub and see what that looks like.
Its slowly coming together now, and the more I do the more excited I get. I cant wait to start taking some nice scenic pictures!

looking more and more erry day!

Its all coming together

The plastic sheet has been cut and painted, and boy does it look nice to have something resembling roads! I just used a random can of grey primer I found in my paint pile and used it just to get something down, but I'm actually really liking that color. I think I may just seal that and  go with it.

 starting to actually look like something for once...

I also made a tunnel portal out of the leftover parts of a bridge and cut them to fit in the mouth of the tunnel. I was having a real problem getting a tunnel portal that fit.
When I initially laid the track, I didn't measure the distance between the rails good enough, and as a result the tunnel mouth ended up way to wide. Visually it doesn't look too bad, but getting a standard tunnel portal to fit in there was pretty much impossible, so I had to bash something up. Doesn't look amazing, but I think once its painted it'll do.

the mountain grew a bit it seems. Cant wait to start planting trees!

I also added a bit more to the mountain. Helps the thing look more like it belongs and isn't just a random large hill. So now there's some more rocks to look at and makes it slightly more believable. Last but not least, the ship/s are finally glued in. which makes the mountain a permanent feature. all that's left now is to wrap that bad boy in plaster cloth and dress her up!

Stay Tuned!

Roads and Zoning

Well, its been a while, but I've finally got a bunch of the materials I need to continue on. Most notably the elevated track sections. A friend gifted me a set of Chicago style EL sections from the lovely people at Imagine That Laser Art. Their kits (of which they have many) are all laser cut plywood and the detail on them is top notch! Having built some laser cut junk before these went together with fairly little problem, though you do have to be careful with the N scale version of them to make sure everything lines up right. 

But any who, I got the first section done which allowed me to finalize the proper height for the trolley station into the mountain, which also allowed me to finally start gluing the the dang thing together!

 The first section coming together. Words of wisdom though, computers aren't good workbenches. 

In this next picture, the actual elevated section is complete and I'm lining up the height of the station with the deck of the platform. The next step is to permanently glue the station into the forming rock face. That long white sheet is actually a hunk of sheet plastic. the plan is to use that as the road base and build up the sidewalks with cardboard. It sounds silly, but I've seen it done else were so Imma give it a try!

I CAN FINALLY GLUE THIS THING TOGETHER

This is a stencil I created of the area in the picture above. A full Map of the road/ground. I'll transfer the shape to that plastic sheet and spray it road color. Hopefully I got the shape right because that plastic sheet ain't cheap!

  

Look at that EL track though! Isn't it awesome? 

But hopefuly I can really start to ramp building up now that I have all the things I need to actually move forward. Which is great, because I'm tired of looking at boring spray painted foam! 

 Ding Ding! next stop, more updates!