Pasture gets first layer of grass

Well, there was no more procrastination to do. So, the pasture finally became green enough that it might actually feed some scale livestock, provided they don’t fuss too much over a belly full of tiny plastic filaments! The near side of the fence will receive deeper weeds, and so, it will be completed in the […]

Blending the background

If I’m honest with myself, I might be procrastinating. I do this whenever there’s a new skill to develop and apply and I’m nervous about getting started. However, I convinced myself that the background should be blended with the landscape before starting on static grass. The blending started with a small piece of blank backdrop, […]

Optimism and Industry

On Thursday, my friend, Mark Dance of Columbia and Western fame invited a few of us over for an evening of pizza and beer and talking about model trains. The question he wanted to discuss was whether model railroads can be art, and what are the implications if they are. It was a fun evening, […]

Split rail fence and Forced Perspective

The split rail fence goes straight into the background, where other elements are about 3/4 size. So, to bring the two together, the fence diminishes in size as it recedes into the distance. To accomplish this forced perspective, I went through all the rails yet again and sorted them into three piles by size. The […]

Split rail fence proof of concept

Two sides of the pasture are demarked by a double-post split rail fence. I’ve been keeping an eye out for suitable twigs all summer, but they’re all either too curved or too difficult to split or otherwise unsuitable. Then I came up with the idea of using bamboo skewers: they’re straight and plentiful and they […]

Pasture Background in Place

I was almost surprised to find that my old staple gun packed enough oomph to blast right through a layer of aluminum flashing, another of laser board and into the plywood that forms the bottom layer of the pasture. It made quick work of the operation, and then all I had to do was come […]

Painting the pasture background

The Girl asked me to vacate the house on Thursday evening so she could have a friend over without “weird parent vibes” infecting the atmosphere. We compromised, and I decamped to the garage where I’d set up a little art studio. There I spent a pleasant evening discovering which 20-year old tubes of acrylic were […]

Pasture gets Another Background

Something bugged me when I posted that photo on the weekend of the four different backgrounds for the pasture: why had the barn turned out so much smaller than the aluminum version? As I thought about it, I realized the fence in the foreground had needed a lot of shaping to match the ground profile. […]

Pasture background cut out

Thanks to Rob Kirkham for pointing out that I never published this post on the weekend, and then referred to it on Monday evening. With the drawing matching the ground as modelled, I broke it into pieces so it would fit on the laser. The pieces follow the natural edges in the final scene, so […]

Dogs and Tennis Balls and Math

In Lance Mindheim’s post this week about simple layouts, he likens himself to a dog with a tennis ball. He’s happy to repeat the same moves time and again, much like the professionals. But what if you’re not like a dog chasing a tennis ball? How much complexity does it take so that you will […]