Work has been plugging along since my last update, its certainly been a while, but all hope isn't lost!

The mountain is pretty much done now. I've tossed on some grass, a pinch of rubble and a smidge of shrubbery.

Its not looking too shabby for a first try honestly. Its not perfect but its definitely passable. still bits to touch up here and there, maybe a little more highlighting on the rock face? who knows!

I've started to plot sidewalks as well, in fact one section is already done and down! I really didn't want to drop all that cash on pre-made sidewalks (they do look good though) so after a lot, and I do mean a lot of experimenting and googling, I came up with the idea of using cereal box cardboard cut, scored, painted and weathered for a foundation/sidewalk combo. Took a few tries, but I think I did pretty ok.

With, and without buildings. I though cutting and scoring all those lines would be way harder than it was

You can see in the pictures above how it turned out. still debating on if I went a little too hard on the weathering, but with the buildings down its not awful. there is a section directly below the trolley station that needs weathering. I didn't account for it, but there's no building there to cover up the non weathered section and is just open concrete for now. I'll think of something to put there but it looks out of place with the sidewalk weathered next to the bare foundation bit.

You can see the bare spot directly ahead under the EL. Definitely looks a little weird

 An uptown view of downtown

In laying out sidewalks, I somewhat have a boundary for the sub port now. the outside will be lined with chain link fence to show the boundaries. I still need some buildings, so other than that section that's already down, Its all still being tossed around  a little bit, but its definitely much more final now. Even just like this Its looking pretty great! I'm already dreading having to work on the main city...its getting closer!

 the current state of Southbend

 That's most of it for this post. I'm going to the train show a the end of the month so hopefully I can get bunch of stuff I need to keep going, and get some much needed Inspiration and motivation to kick start some more construction!
Also, bonus, I weathered the railship! The camera really brought out the rust, but its much more dulled in regular light. I'm eventually going to put some gantry and scaffolding around the area its parked in to make it look like a dry dock or service bay or something. but I gotta finish painting the warehouse building.

 In for repairs