I found out that Sherwin-Williams sells 31-oz sample bottles of almost any interior paint color for $5. They say this is enough paint to cover 75 sq. ft. so you can test it on a wall or whatever, but it's way more than enough for my 20 sq. ft. of layout. They do warn that it's not suitable as a topcoat (although you can clear-coat it) but I don't think this will matter in this case. There's a Sherwin-Williams store right down the street from me, so I picked a color called "Totally Tan" and also chose the darker "Cobble Brown" that I think I'll use to paint the benchwork.
I've already done some experimenting with scenic materials, including static grass flocking. Someone posted a link on the Atlas forum to a set of instructions for rigging up a static grass applicator using the circuitry from an electric fly swatter. Basically it charges a capacitor to high voltages that zap a fly when it touches the metal paddle, but this tool uses a metal strainer to charge the grass as it falls. Since Harbor Freight had them on sale for $3, this seemed worthwhile to try. I used a strainer from Dollar Tree that had a metal handle I could solder to, so it wasn't hard to assemble.
$3 electric flyswatter + $1 tea strainer = instant static grass tool.I tried the tool out a while back using Medium Green static grass from Woodland Scenics, and while it didn't exactly make all the fibers stick up straight, there was definitey plenty of texture:
First attempt at using the static grass tool with Medium Green flocking.
I also noticed the color was too uniform, so this time I tried it again by laying down a coat of the Totally Tan paint and then applying a combination of static grass and ground foam. I used Woodland Scenics fine Weeds foam (a deeper green) to add some darker shading underneath the grass, and sprinked a little bit of Green Grass foam on top for texture. I definitely like this sample a lot more, but it still looks a little too manicured so I'll have to try adding longer pieces of WS field grass and bits of lighter-colored ground foam to look like clover or dandelions.
Second experiment with more color and texture.
First attempt at using the static grass tool with Medium Green flocking.I also noticed the color was too uniform, so this time I tried it again by laying down a coat of the Totally Tan paint and then applying a combination of static grass and ground foam. I used Woodland Scenics fine Weeds foam (a deeper green) to add some darker shading underneath the grass, and sprinked a little bit of Green Grass foam on top for texture. I definitely like this sample a lot more, but it still looks a little too manicured so I'll have to try adding longer pieces of WS field grass and bits of lighter-colored ground foam to look like clover or dandelions.
Second experiment with more color and texture.
1 comment:
I think that's looking pretty good, have you experimented any with patches of tall grass around rocky or weed-strewn areas? There aren't exactly a lot of lush grass fields around the Palmer Depot... or anywhere in Palmer for that matter. It's really more the sort of place where you'd be likely to see an Oldsmobile up on blocks rather than grass in someones front lawn...
Anyway, Josh Baako's been documenting the construction of his switching layout on ModelRailroadForums, and he used speckle paint, which has chunks of sand and stone in it as a base layer over the foam... it really looks kind of cool, I assume he let it dry, and then will go over it with an earth-tone paint and ground cover. Link is: http://tinyurl.com/4w4es7
Also, that got me thinking about the DupliColor truck bed coating I use on my truck, it's got very fine grains of sand in it, and looks like it might simulate asphalt roads pretty well. I'm touching up a few rust spots on the truck this weekend, so I might do a test on some styrene as well.
Chris
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