Painting & piling rocks

First layer of paint & shore rocks - argh, the photo's colours don't seem right! 

After a lot of avoidance behaviour I steeled myself and applied the first layer of paint to the landforms. First though, I spent some time trying to figure out what colours I needed to use to mimic the terrain this layout is representing. What follows are some notes on colour mixes, which I admit are likely boring for most readers, but it’s some documentation to help me recall what I did.

I’m told the rocks in the region are skarns that are about 50% magnetite, which accounts for their dark grey, nearly black colour. Magnetite is an iron ore, so one often sees rust on these rocks. It’s not unusual to see highway rock cuts that are just huge walls of rusted rock. Over the summer I picked up some samples in the bush and by the roadside so I’d have some colour references went it came time for layout building. Although I took a lot of pictures, I think samples are important because the colour doesn’t always come through in photos.

Rock collection & paint tests

I fiddled around a lot with colour mixing to get matches to local colour. Here’re the main ones I’ve found useful so far:

Basic magnetite skarn rock formations:

Revell Aqua Color 36178, Tank grey, mixed with a small amount of 36137, Reddish brown, and 36162, Mossy green. The red and green are to tone down the slightly metallic grey. 

Straight from the cube, the Revell paint has a consistency close to runny pancake batter. To make it usable I mixed in a considerable amount of Revell’s thinner. I wanted my mixes closer to the consistency of water so not to obscure rocky detail.

Weathered rust:

Tamiya XF-84, Dark Iron, mixed close to 50/50 with a run-of-the-mill acrylic Raw Sienna in a tube. The tube paint was thinned with water until it was runny.

Driveway gravel & road:

Revell Aqua Color 36175, Stone grey, mixed about 50/50 with Tamiya XF-19, Sky Grey. I don’t know if the chemistry of the two brands is suitable for mixing, but it seems to work out ok.

Concrete steps:

Model Master Aged Concrete Flat mixed loosely with Revell's Stone grey and Tamiya's Sky Grey. All the Model Master paints have been discontinued, but luckily I have a small cache of their Concrete and Aged Concrete Flat that'll do me for awhile. However, I've been experimenting with substitutes, and it's looking like Revell's Aqua Color 36189, Beige, might be a good alternative in my usual concrete mix when I run out of Model Master.

Lake water:

Tamiya XF-26, Deep Green, toned to a very dark shade with Tamiya XF-1, Flat Black. I think my mix is a little too black and should have a more greenish tinge for water close to shore. I probably need to change my colour mix.

I may not have stated it in each mix, but the paints need to be thin when applied. All are more-or-less too thick straight from their containers. Also, I’m still finding my way with mixing and painting, and I can see lots of areas that are going to need correction. Don't take anything I say for gospel. At this point I simply wanted to get over my reticence to applying paint to a blank surface. 

Once the first layer was down and dry, which took a few days of on-and-off work, I thought I should add rock before anymore painting so that when I painted further layers the rock and surroundings would blend.

Most of my rock samples were far too large for the layout so I took a few outside and gave them a good pounding with my sledge hammer and rock pick. As well as a sore shoulder, this produced a variety of smaller rocks. Once my shoulder's better, I need to have another round. 

I dropped a few on the shore and glued them in place with a 50/50 mix of water and matte medium. More rock of various sizes need to be added to get the effect I'm looking for. This is to simulate the rock that would have been blasted out and dumped along the shoreline to create the track's roadbed. In real life this would be highly illegal, so it's a good thing this is just a model :-) 

I also glued 3 rocks in the lake near the bridge to simulate a small offshore island. These sorts of small islands aren't unusual. They're made from rocks that fell off retreating glaciers. Mine needs a bit more work as I lack the sculptural subtly of a moving mass of ice from 23,000 years ago.

I should backup a bit and note that before starting on the rock layer, I placed a few figures and a tree armature to have a look at scale. As for HO, I'm thinking there might be space for two or three small sheds on the peninsula, but not much else. After all, it's just a proving ground for locos and such, not a tourist destination :-)