Scenery Techniques
Used During Construction
All
the scenery on the AM Express was created using the techniques developed
by Dave Frary and described in his book 
HOW
TO BUILD REALISTIC MODEL RAILROAD SCENERY published by Kalmbach
Publishing. All our scenery was constructed using Dave's water soluble
method over two inch blue foam board. In most cases, an area of scenery
up to three or four feet long was done in a single evening by only a
couple of club members. All the modeling work you see on this site was
done in only 8 months! The super detailing on the AM Express is just
beginning.
Members would begin the scenery building process by
carving out the basic shape from extra pieces of foam board then generously
applying either a spackling compound or plaster of Paris directly over the
board. While the spackling was still quite wet members then applied thinned
water based acrylics in a variety of earth tones. A variety of colors were used
side by side then were gently mixed by spraying on "wet" water. (water
with a drop of kitchen dish soap). Before anything could dry, the ground foam,
blended turf materials, trees and other scenery materials were applied and
sealed with thinned white glue with a drop or two of liquid soap. By doing
everything while it was wet the scenic materials all began to absorb the colors
surrounding them and took on a very natural effect. When the entire thing dried
all was then needed was to come back and touch up with an airbrush any areas
that didn't dry to member's satisfaction. This is actually a very simple
technique that works great and anyone can easily learn to do it! But a word of
caution, when using the water soluble method be careful about getting plaster,
paint and white glue on previously laid track and turnouts! If nothing else,
this will really tick off many of your fellow club members! Not to mention
requiring a lot of extra clean-up around the turnouts.
TREES
The AM Express is covered with thousands of trees! We
estimate there are over 5,000 trees on the layout, mostly handmade by a
variety of club members during work sessions. We arrived at this number by
roughly counting the number of bags of raw material required knowing we could
get about 100 trees from a bag of "candy tuft" (see below). The pines
on the mountains (over 600 of them) are commercial trees, however we
individually flocked each one with green blended turf scenic material to give
them more fullness. The balance of the trees were made using a variety of dried
flower arrangement materials which can be bought in almost any craft supply
store. We have found Michael's craft supply to have the best variety. A
favorite material is called natural Candy Tuft. It is nothing more than a dried
"weed" but when it is airbrushed with a variety of realistic greens
and browns and the trunks painted brownish gray they take on the look of very
real trees in N scale. Another great material is sold through hobby stores by a
company called Scenic Express. These trees have great fullness and are created
by flocking the "weeds" sold by Scenic Express with their finely
ground scenic materials. In all cases, we first sprayed the "weeds"
with a mixture of dark brown and light gray water base paints prior to flocking.
WATER
There are a lot of different types of water on the AM
Express. There is calm stagnant brown water, nearly dry creeks, calm clear
lakes, cascading waterfalls, rapids, and a fast running river. None of the
"water" is actually more than a few millimeters thick! But it looks
really deep in many places. The 1600 scale foot Kokomo River which runs near the
town of Dogwood on the opposite end of the "G" from the mountain area
is 100 to 150 scale feet wide in most places. This was the most challenging of
all the water projects. Jim Santaella, Gene McNamara and Steve Lucas began by
cutting all the blue board away in the winding river shape wanted. The cut was
made about 4 inches wider than the finished scene to allow for the molded rocks
which would line the edge. The bottom of the river was then replaced with the
smooth side of a masonite board facing upwards. Once the rocks were molded and
cut to fit using commercial rock molds they were airbrushed with a variety of
reddish browns, browns, grays and earth colors. Once
that had dried a watery thin layer of plaster of Paris was poured into
the entire bottom of the river about ½ inch thick to seal the foam
board and the masonite. Then the bottom was airbrushed using a
water based acrylic color called phathalo green. This is absolutely the best
color member's have found for simulating clear or semi-clear water!! You can
find it in craft stores under the brand name Delta Ceramcoat. It is thick, so
thin it appropriately before trying to spray it with your airbrush!
Working on the white plaster of Paris the thinned phathalo
green was sprayed lightly at the edges to make it appear that the river's
sandy bottom is showing in the shallow areas. In the center of the river, and
all the deep areas, the paint was sprayed much thicker giving it the effect of
deeper water. And in the deepest water a thinned flat black paint was used to
simulate the appearance of really deep water. The entire thing is actually flat,
but once the "water" polyester resin was finally applied it looks just
like a very deep fast moving river with very shallow edges.
The rapids at the top of the river were poured first.
Members began by putting down aquarium filter floss in all the areas where the
water was to appear to be bouncing and moving. Then a clear polyester resin was
poured. A second member "molded" the "white water" with a
hair dryer set on low heat. Caution, the polyester will set quickly if you use a
lot of heat! By blowing it on cool you can push the resin into "piles"
of water and make it really appear to be moving.
The rest of the river was made by pouring a thin layer of
the polyester resin over the airbrushed bottom. If you plan to use this
technique make sure the foam board is totally sealed with the plaster of Paris
before using the resin. Polyester resin will attack the foam board and you'll
find all your river on the floor in just a few minutes! Once the resin had
hardened the river's surface was airbrushed again with highly thinned phathalo
green. This second coat of airbrushed paint really helps the illusion of water
and the finished effect is surprisingly real. When the airbrushed paint was dry
members brushed on acrylic gloss medium using a swirling motion with a ½ inch
brush.
All the "still" waters on the layout including
the two mountain lakes, Dry Creek, Coyote Creek, the "cow pond" and
others were created by simply using EnviroTex two part resin poured thinly over
plaster of Paris which had been airbrushed with reddish browns to simulate muddy
water or the phathalo green as described earlier. Be careful not to allow
anything to touch the EnviroTex while it is wet. More
than once members tried to get swimming mosquitos out of the ponds and
streams to no avail. The best thing you can do once anything foreign
gets in is to put a clump of scenery material over the offending insect
or flaw to simulate a submerged bush or tree!
At the extreme "western" tip of the layout is
one of its most impressive parts. The mountain division tip consists of Deer
Lake, complete with a herd of deer, which falls into a steep waterfall we call
Bear Creek Falls that is the beginning of Bear Creek. At the base of the
waterfall the water actually appears to be rushing through a series of culverts
past a couple of black bears. The waterfall was created using a combination of
aquarium filter floss and clear silicone aquarium sealant which was brushed
downward across the 
filter material. Once the silicone had dried a dilute coat
of "oyster" white paint was applied with a final coat of clear gloss
medium to bring back the shine of falling water. The edge of the waterfall is
covered carefully with clumped foliage material to hide imperfections in the
silicone.
The water rushing through the culverts at the bottom of
the falls was created using clear polyester resin poured over aquarium filter
floss. Before the resin dried it was possible to "pick" at the floss
to very effectively create the impression of fast moving water. The effect is
quite realistic.
After the scenery base
work was done we then spent a lot of time "planting" weeds
made from Woodland Scenics materials as well as placing clumps of
Woodland Scenics ground foam material to resemble bushes over any and
all scenic areas that did not look as good as expected bare. Our work attempting
to create lifelike scenery still continues, and will likely continue for
as long as we all are "working on the railroad". Right now we're adding
track signals, road signals, crossing gates, several hundred more people
and at least 1,000 more trees! Plus we're adding
a lot of detailing. The town of Dogwood is also undergoing a major
"renovation". We're adding almost 3 times as many storefronts
and buildings and refinishing the streets and roads. Watch the site for more photos as the
work progresses!.
If you're an N scaler in
South Florida, or want to be an N scaler in South Florida, please come
and join us. The "work" gang can always use help, and lots of
new ideas!
For more information on scenery methods used on the A.M.
Express, contact: Steve Lucas
