The Little Rock Line

[OldEastRR]

There was an article in MR way way back about making lily pads and pond scum. Also way back, how to make cattails. Both were for HO, but maybe you can use the techniques. \

The trick with "poured" water is how to get it completely level. I don't think anybody's come up with the perfect method. For my flat, still water scenes I use thin clear styrene sheets, cut to fit the waterway, and light green coloring on the underside for that murky look. Thinned paint or Magic markers are good. If you don't overdo the coloring you can see the bottom of the pond like looking through water.

[Bendtracker1]

An update on the Bog water.
I did the final (2nd) pour 8 weeks ago on Jan 15. Since then I've worked on the depot, the crossing bucks, and installed the signals, all with in weeks of the bog.

The last time I worked on the layout was Jan 21 as I was getting ready for the Op session on the 27th. In that time I hadn't paid much attention to the bog, other than a passing glance. Just before then I noticed that some areas of the bog was turning much lighter than I had wanted and figured that "It is what it will be" and I'd just live with it.

Since then it's been awfully cold around here and one night in Feb it hit -19° and my basement gets cold in the winter time. So I haven't been down there very much since. Today it hit 70°. With that and that I finished my taxes today, I went down to make up a mental list of things that I need to wrap up and a list of what I want to work on next.

As I walked past the bog I noticed that it was a much darker brown!
Here's a shot about a week after the pour.
It's kind of hard to see, but the far right end of the bog looked as light brown as some of the spots around the banks, but it was fully light brown in that area.



Here's a shot I took tonight.
As you can see, it has that rich Coffee brown color, which is what I was shooting for.
So it seems that the Liquitex Pouring Medium just took some time to properly cure.  I will definitely be using this again for my water scenes.

[Philip H]

That definitely has to look of silty brown swamp water. Well done.

[Bendtracker1]

That definitely has to look of silty brown swamp water. Well done.

Thanks Philip!

[Bendtracker1]

It's been a while since I got the bog done and got any notable work done.
Recently though, I did get the Showcase Miniatures crossing signals installed and wired up with a bell.

I also built and modified a Walther's Santa Fe brick depot to represent the Ruston depot.







I need to add more details to it and the surrounding area in due time.

[OldEastRR]

In the video you forgot to have the engineer signal for the crossing. 

[Bendtracker1]

A while back, 2017 to be precise, I started on the Ouachita river crossing scene and then got sidetracked with a bunch of other projects, which seems to be the norm.
Mainly I stopped due to not knowing how I wanted to blend the river into the backdrop.



A few weeks ago while walking past it, the light came on.  Instead of trying to blend it in, why not force it away from the backdrop.  I know I've seen this done elsewhere so I started doing some digging on the forums.  I finally found it.  A big shout out to @Pomperaugrr.  He recently worked on his river scene and he added a 3D river bank against his backdrop and then bent the river around so it followed the backdrop.  Then he hid the end of the river behind a large building.  So that's what I shot for. 

I started cutting out a lot of the banks and installed chunks of floral foam so it would be easier to carve the banks to the shape I wanted.  Floral foam worked great in other places on the layout, so I continued with it.



Once dry I started to shape them to a rough shape.  I don't need anything fancy as much of them will be fully coved with trees and vegetation, as seen on this google map view of the actual river.



Where Pomperaugrr used a large building to hide his river, I wanted to try using a mirror and heavy vegetation to see if I could extend the river around the bend?
I might still try to add a larger building if I can find one that's useful.



I found a larger mirror and changed the angle so it made the river bank curve around the backdrop. I also ripped out and replaced the two rear blocks of foam.



When I was happy with the shape, I painted the foam with earth latex and then applied a green filter to help cover the earth color when I apply the undergrowth. I also got the rest of the backdrop painted so it's continuous.  Here is where it stands at the moment.





I'm also working on the abutments to make some corrections to them that was pointed out to me back in 2017.

[Ed Kapuscinski]

It's a weird thing to appreciate, I suppose, but I really like the way you paint your landscape while in progress to help visualize what it's going to look like when it's done. That's slick.

[Bendtracker1]

It's a weird thing to appreciate, I suppose, but I really like the way you paint your landscape while in progress to help visualize what it's going to look like when it's done. That's slick.

Thanks Ed.
Actually I paint everything with the earth latex just to seal everything.
For the banks, I didn't paint them for a visual guide, but as a filter.  When the vegetation is applied, you won't see so much earth tones and it should add depth.  But I suppose it helps to see where you're going? 

[Bendtracker1]

As mentioned in the previous post, Wazzou and Chris333 posted this back in 2017:

I'm confused by the way you have the track approach the bridges on the abutments.
Is it common to have such a long abutment with what I would assume to be the rail attached directly to the concrete?

That's because I didn't give them much thought as I should have.  I had planned to slip some ties under the bare rails in time, just hadn't got that far yet.
But it was a good catch as I didn't finish the tops off correctly.  As they looked at first, they looked like solid concrete instead of three poured walls filled with earth, topped with ballast.

So to fix this I added some styrene around the top three edges, carved them to match any crumblings then painted and weathered them.
Then I glued the ties in place and added ballast.

Chriss333, gave me a couple nice examples of what they should look like.  Thanks Chris.

[Frank Amato]

Nice save, well done !!!

[Bendtracker1]

Nice save, well done !!!

Thanks!

[Chris333]

Nice save, well done !!!

And just in time too 

[Bendtracker1]

I got the river poured the other night, it's not exactly what I was shooting for but I'll take it.
When mixing the paint into the acrylic medium it was just like the bog, the Pouring medium is translucent and it's more or less a guess on how much paint to add to it. 

It turned out more of a solid brown than a translucent brown that I was hoping for but maybe that is a good thing?  It definitely took on a muddy look but not the bright orangish brown like I've seen in Google Map images.  In the case of the bog, a few days after I poured it, it started to take on a lighter brown color.  After a month or so I noticed the light color receded and went back to the dark Coffee Brown that I originally wanted.  So we'll wait and see what happens after a few weeks?

One thing I am happy with is the surface texture.  It's not a smooth, glossy surface.  It's actually kind of wavy which adds to the reflection so it's not like a perfect mirror reflection.  It gives the illusion of flowing water.

Here is where the scene is at.  This is only one pour, about 1/16" to 1/8" thick.  If I recall the medium did shrink a bit in the bog, so a second pour might happen?
I did photoshop some of the clutter out on the right side.

[Lemosteam]

Looks like a hot hazy day from a rain that is slowly making the river move and churn, maybe a slight breeze too. Sweet.