COMPOSE SCENERY

Peter Marriott turns landscape artist and demonstrates how to create convincing terrain.

One challenge with building a model railway is marrying the man-made and natural worlds. The man-made element, in our case the railway, is all straight lines, angles and order. The natural world is anything but ordered!

Take a look at your lawn, for example. You can’t mimic it in model form simply by using a single colour of paint. It might have some weeds. Some patches might be darker, some lighter. A few days of hot sun will turn it brown, but a heavy downpour will make it green again. And that’s just for a piece of the natural world where man’s presence is evident (i.e. you and your lawnmower).

Realistic model scenery relies on a certain

amount of composition. Remember that you’re trying to create a semblance of natural randomness, but with very precise, man-made products.

In order to compose the best model scenery you have to think in layers. That’s why static grass has become popular, because it allows you to create layers of ground cover. There’s an almost natural randomness to how the fibres fall from the applicator as you never know which ones are going to stick. It’s akin to knowing that not every seed sown will germinate.

There’s never been a better time for creating realistic scenery. There are so many flocks and scatters that will flesh out the static grass to create realistic changes in texture and colour.

Just keep in mind a few rules: choose the right colours and lengths of grass fibres to suit the scale of the layout and the season, use subdued shades rather than bright vivid colours and don’t mix seasonal colours.

With that in mind, I dug out an old diorama from the back of my garage. I built it a couple of years ago but I was unhappy with the static grass, so I decided to use it as a test bed for this article and try to compose a more realistic piece of scenery.

Let’s see how I got on…

1 The base layer

This embankment was built the traditional way – plaster bandage over blocks of polystyrene. When dry, the bandage was painted green.

I used a flat screwdriver to scrape off the long and unrealistic static grass, even getting down to the green paint in places. Now I was ready to start again.

I’ve obviously done things a bit backwards. You’ll need to start by painting the base green and then apply your first layer of static grass – use 4mm fibres here to cover the area. Alternatively – and this is probably the simplest option – you should be left with something that looks like this (right)… Now you can start to assemble your layers.

2 Vary your ground

It might seem as though weeds get everywhere, but you do see the odd patch of ground where very little seems to grow. Get closer and you’ll probably find all manner of small plants, lichens and mosses, but from normal viewing distances it looks bare. Adding a barren patch will enhance the natural, random look you’re going for. Rather than cover the entire embankment in static grass again, I wanted areas of exposed stony earth on the side of the embankment. I spread some pound shop PVA where I wanted the stony patches and, while the glue was still wet, sprinkled on some Treemendus Earth Powder. This is very fine and sticks to the glue really easily. Follow this with a little fine sand from WW Scenics. Within seconds you’ll have created a rocky soil-like substance with different textures and colours.