A new year, some new mojo

Feb 2013 - You might be wondering were did 2012 go, and I must say I'm wondering the same thing. It was a very busy year getting married and quiting my job to go back to college.  Sadly after not finding a buyer for the old ho layout I dismantled it in august saving everything but base and backdrop panels. I finally got my modelling mojo back after going to the Barrie train show in February 2013 and picked up a few things. At the shows I love going to the vendors who sell used old neglected equipment for cheap then taking it home and fixing it up. I picked up this athearn sd75 for 25 buck it was in rather poor shape, its previous owner had lost the fuel tank, plow and some railings were coming off as well, and instead of paint used permanent marker and pen for weathering.  Took a saturday afternoon to fix it up clean the gears, remove the marker, fix the railings and clean and weather.  I had an old parts engine with a plow so I used that, and scratch built the fuel tank out of styrene.  I did have to change the width between the wheels so it would go over the turnouts but other than that it ran beautifully with little noise and low voltage.

 So I finally decided to come back for a second round of making a stream, this is the before with the crappy hot glue.

 And the reground breaking begins

 down to the base

I must say I liked how the ripped cork turned out, It has a rocky dirt quality and because I layed the cork down in thin layers when building the base of the layout when ripping it up it helped with that geological layering effect when you dig into the side of a hill. Painting started with base of black then drybrushed in various browns on the cork. Just remember you are creating the illusion of water, the depth comes from the paint underneath, the darker the water the deeper it looks. Also adding some parts of debris like rocks, railway ties or an old shopping cart can help with the illusion.

 So this time for the water sheen I used some old polyurethane I've had sitting around for ages that had a nice varnished amber color to it, which seamed to melt any ground foam it touched in the end helped get that nasty toxic hue. I found using a syringe and just going along letting it ooze out was the best technique as it wouldnt tend to bubble as much as when using a paint brush.  Also doing several thin coats is better than one or two heavy coat helps as well. Im pleased with the results this time.

This is when I finally came up with the name for my layout.