The Little Rock Line

[davefoxx]

You're welcome for the suggestion, Allen.  Just passing along information that someone else gave to me.  Good job on completing that not-so-fun task, especially when you realize that you had to spend weeks of modeling time on a project that shouldn't have even been necessary.  But, your trains will run much better, and it will be worth it.

DFF

[Bendtracker1]

In late June I slipped on an airhose at work and twisted my right knee and it never seemed to get better.
Turned it into Workman's Comp and last week after getting an MRI, they found I tore the meniscus and I also have a slight fracture on the lower leg bone.  I was immediately ordered off the my feet for four weeks, ugh....

So I'm making the best of the time and getting some stuff done around the house where I can and also getting some modeling done in preps for the 14th op session that I'm planning for.  This weekend I got the layout staged, cars are all tabbed and re consisted both of the mail trains, I removed a few of the passenger cars and replaced them with a few more TOFC's and trailer.

Tonight I started making a few pipe loads for the new Ozark Irrigation plant I added lst month.  Just need a few for this session.



I've got a pretty good sized "to-do" list for this session, but I also have another three weeks off, I should be able to scratch everything off the list by then?
 

[Specter3]

Tore the meniscus in my left knee in college. Ended a wishful but in hindsight not promising walk on attempt to run D1 track. But 15 years of knee issues had me finally get a trainer and she figured out that after I healed up there were a couple of weak muscles around the knee. They never regained strength properly and everything else was compensating. But when my motion needed one of those muscles, they were unable to support the load and I hurt the knee again and again. 12 weeks of interesting leg exercises and, knock on wood, no knee issues in years. Has to be 7-8 at this point. And when I would re-hurt it it was always doing something simple with no real "load" on it. Not sports, not dancing, just crawling or trying to get up out of the floor. When it all feels better a good trainer for a short time will keep it that way.

[Blazeman]

Had one of those micro fractures. Local anesthesia allowed me to watch the process of "gluing" it back in place.

[Bendtracker1]

After 7 weeks off work, the knee seems to be doing much better.  X-rays show the fracture is almost healed and and the knee is feeling much better.  I'll see how the meniscus is doing next week Tuesday when I go back for the next checkup?

With all this time off work I managed to get quite a bit of stuff done around the house, even on crutches.
I was able to get the layout staged for another session with some help from a few friends.
I was looking forward to seeing how all the new trackwork and industry were going to work, as well as all the shims I installed in the turnouts.

All in all the session went off without a hitch, but we only had four guys show up so we didn't run all the thru freights, just the four manifests that feed El Dorado yard so we could build the three locals.  It still wound up taking us 3-1/2 hours to get through the session.

Didn't have but only a few shorts, the new industries and track work seemed to flow very good.  But we didn't get a chance to use the new Train Sequence sheet that I worked up nor did we get a chance to try out the crew seniority system since we only had four crews.  Oh well next time.

Here's a link to the blog about the Op Session

I've been itching to get back to painting more of the backdrop, which meant I needed to get the tracks ready for paint and ballasting first.  So tonight I cleared off everything in Haskell and started prepping the tracks.

Trimming the cork back.

 
Filling the ties before


And after


And applying some paint.


More on the blog...

[Bendtracker1]

Last night I got the ceiling tile painted and sealed. Just used some cheap brown mismatched paint I snagged for a $1.





Then this afternoon I got the track painted with some rattle cans of Rustoleum. Used a mixture of Bronze, London Gray and Nutmeg.





Next up, gonna continue painting the backdrops.

[Bendtracker1]

I finally stepped in to some uncharted territories for myself.  I got started painting the backdrops in Haskell and Malvern. 
I used these two colors.



The first layer.



The second layer.





Once they had dried I went back with a cheap 1" brush and stippled more of the darker paint onto the darker hills to break up that crisp line.  Then I took a tip from Dave Frary and misted a bit of white paint on the distant hills to define and give them a bit more depth.

More on the blog...

Next step comes the clouds and the foreground trees...

[Philip H]

That’s pretty convincing Allen. What are your paint colors called?

[Bendtracker1]

Thanks Philip.
They're Pittsburgh paints from Menards, it was their cheapest flat interior paint.
The light color is Jaded Green, the darker one is Deep Veridian.
I'm sure I could have gone a shade or two either way and it still would have looked OK.  The more you stare at colors the more they look alike.   

These did dry a touch darker than the samples, but I'm good with it as I will be misting some white over the tops of the hills when add the clouds.  That should lighten them up a bit?

Also I noticed and had one comment elsewhere that the first picture looked like I started with the darker color first.
This is not the case, the lighting was playing games with the exposure and it came out looking too dark.  The distant hills in second pic should be as dark as they are in the first pic.  The first pic is close to normal exposure.

[Bendtracker1]

I got after the clouds today.
Clouds have always been perplexing to me. Most say they are easy but there are as many different ways of making them as there are clouds.

While watching something on FaceBook the other day where a painter used nothing more than a rattle can and stencil he made some pretty realistic clouds very easily.

While I've know of stencils I never really looked into them before. I found several videos on YouTube showing how some made them and how they used them. It seemed pretty simple?

I made mine from a sheet of black poster board I got from Wally World for $0.97 and cut down into smaller sections that were easy to hold and maneuver. On one I cut out the clouds with a knife, the rest I just tore out sections randomly.
Then I folded the top portion over 1" or so to give me something to hold them with and also to keep them a bit more rigid. It also acted like a shield from any over spray.



Then I loaded my airbrush with some thinned down cheap hobby acrylic paint.







More on the blog...

[davefoxx]

That looks fantastic, Allen.  Just the right amount and not overdone.  Well played, sir!

DFF

[Jbub]

This is my favorite shot, the clouds and background look rather realistic and there is a real sense of depth.

Jbub

[Bendtracker1]

That looks fantastic, Allen.  Just the right amount and not overdone.  Well played, sir!

DFF

Thank you Dave!
It was hard not to over do it.  I struggled to keep space between the clouds.  The way Eric did it on his Housatonic backdrop looks awesome, I wasn't sure I wanted the clouds to run the full length of the backdrop.

[Bendtracker1]

This is my favorite shot, the clouds and background look rather realistic and there is a real sense of depth.

Jbub

I agree with you, but I really need to do something about the shadow!
Thank you.

[Bendtracker1]

I just finished the first section of my backdrop with a layer of distant hills covered with trees.  Bob Ross I am not, but having never done this before I feel pretty good about it and feel that I should be able to continue this method across my entire backdrop.





I started with a dark green acrylic craft paint and small sponge to cover the nearest hills.  As I progressed to a lighter and lighter green, I stippled this on with a 3/4" flat brush.





 These are the paints I used.



There's more on the blog...