Isle Ornsay

[tedp]

I hadn't noticed anything about the second wave myself. If it's flatter than the first one, that would be only natural since the first breaker line would break more heavily. If some of the energy has been spent already, the second time it breaks in the shallowing water it would be more subdued. As I said on the other forum, it's way better than any water I ever modelled. I particularly like the final white patch between the rocks.

[invercloy]

Roger, thanks for the feedback. I'm a coastal engineer for a profession, so I'm enjoying this phase of the build as I can be a bit nerdy about it.

Ted, that was my exact reasoning for the waves being the shapes they are, so I'm pleased you've picked up on that in the model.

I've done a little more tonight. The paper mache that Emma did the other day has now dried, so it's received the first coat of brown paint. When this is dry I'll need to add a little more plaster around the edges of the rear plaster castings to blend them into the surrounding ground/coast/baseboard edge.

More interestingly, I've been adding some 'wavelets'. This is done using some clear artist's gel. I like using artist's materials, they seem to suit my way of doing things on the layout.



A thin coating of this was applied to the entire sea surface that I've painted so far.  I stippled it on to gives a gloss coating with a little texture. I then piped on some thin sections of the gel and shaped them into a few small waves to add some additional texture to the surface between the main waves.



We'll see how it dries...At the moment it's a bit of a fight to keep them in the right shape as it dries...

[invercloy]

Inspired by a visit from my mate Chris to discuss a micro layout project, I decided to fish two of the boards out of the loft to continue the rock painting. To do this I also needed to add a couple of small patches of plaster to the base of the rock casting at the rear of the layout. Once this had largely dried I cracked out the acrylic paints.
 

 
I've added the first coat of dark acrylic paint to the next sections of rock and stone walling. The paints used are acrylics by Windsor & Newton, and the colour used is a mix of roughly 60% Payne's Gray and 40% Raw Umber in quite a thick mix. This is applied over the entire surface, stippled into all the recesses, to give a dark colour to act as shadows. This will then be matched into the section I've already completed dry brushing and adding washes with the acrylics, and finally using pastel pencils as before.
 

 

 
As you may have spotted, the sea has gotten a bit whiter in front of the pier. This is just some Woodland Scenics 'Water Effects' that's been added to give a bit more texture. 
 

 
I applied small blobs of the product across the flatter areas of sea. I then stippled the surface with my finger to pull small peaks up across the entire surface. If i need to repeat this process to get the desired finish that should be ok. It will dry clear, so the paint effects should show through well.
 
More soon...

[invercloy]

The black was completely dried this morning so I moved on to the dry brushing.

Here's the colour palette I have used:



Its a mix of pale umber, burnt umber and raw sienna in varying amounts.

This was then dry brushed sparingly onto the blackened rocks to give the base colour to work from.









When this has dried well I'll add some washes of varying colours and perhaps a little more dry brushing after that before cracking out the pastel pencils to detail.

Here are the results of the Woodland Scenics 'Realistic Water' being applied to the areas between the waves...
 

 
I'm quite happy with them. The varying surface is quite reflective and catches the light at different angles, so it actually sparkles a little now, just like the real sea which is a very pleasing result :)

[Krizzy]

Tom

Excellent!

Roger

[invercloy]

Thanks Roger!

More progress on the rocks. In between night shifts and sleeping during the day due to the tidal surge work I've added some washes to the rocks.
 

 
A mix of thin washes of the same acrylic paints used for the base colour, plus a couple of extras: burnt umber, raw umber, pale umber, burnt sienna, payne's grey.
 

 

 
As you'll see I'm not bothered about getting the rocks wet, plenty of water involved as the washes are quite thin. The paints can flow around a bit in the water too which I've found helps give a random finish. If there's too much at a certain point it's easy to remove by dabbing some kitchen roll.




 
I am now going to leave this to dry completely. It'll then (hopefully) give me a good base to work from with the pastel pencils to blend it in with the other section of rock that's already completed.
 
More soon...

[tedp]

... 

...

This rather looks like the remains of a boisterous party!

I think the wet rocks look very natural for the area modelled. The dry ones in comparison look a little flat although the colour is correct. Perhaps it is an idea to use a little gloss varnish on the surface of the rocks that are exposed to the surf.

[invercloy]

I'll experiment, Ted...

EDIT - On second thoughts, the tide I have modelled is probably not powerful enough to generate much spray to wet the rocks that far. Given scale colour issues I may go for satin varnish if I do anything rather than gloss...

[invercloy]

Now the castings have dried I've applied the first stab at detailing with the pastel pencils.
 

 
It now blends into the colouring of the front section of the rocks more effectively. 
 

 
I've also added the below-tide-level black staining to the rocks along the coast on the next board.

With the colour of rocks behind the platform sorted, I decided to make a start on the grass atop the headland. As this is more of a moorland area I've decided to apply some tufts separated out from a Silflor grass mat prior to using the static grass applicator.



The tufts are teased out set into neat PVA glue, then left to dry.





The effect will improve when the tufts are blended into the surrounding grass by the application of the static fibres.

[invercloy]

Message for anyone going to the Tonbridge Exhibition next weekend...

Regretfully I've had to withdraw Isle Ornsay from appearing at the show. Due to the continued bad weather I'm likely to be staying on shift patterns for the foreseeable future.
Apologies to anyone who was expecting to see it there. The layout will be appearing next at Narrow Gauge South at Sparsholt in April (if the b****y rain stops!).

[clayliner]

I seem to remember you saying a while back that you were involved in coastal defences - do you work for the UK Border Agency? Maybe not  ;)

For added realism you could always remove part of the harbour wall and just leave a length of track swinging in the breeze - I hear it's quite the fashion these days...

More seriously, the sea is looking great and all those lovely rocks, too. Sadly rocks are not really an option on the B&W as it's all sand and gravel thereabouts.

David.

[invercloy]

David, sorry, missed your post... Yes I am, it's been a rather busy time recently :)

Thanks for your compliments, I'm really pleased with how the rocks are coming along.

Due to work commitments things have really stopped me from doing any modelling, but with around a month to go before Sparsholt I best make some improvements to the layout before it's next outing.

Up to now the fiddle yard has used cassettes. This is cumbersome for trains the length of the ones I can run on IO, so I've been thinking of redesigning it for a while now. My friend Chris came over tonight to help plan an operating sequence and an appropriate track arrangement. Dry run shown below. This should mean there's no longer any handling of stock once it's on the layout.





As you can see from the first photo, I've printed some of the Scalescenes papers for stone, whitewash, lime washed stone and slates to see what they're like from normal viewing distances. I'm quite impressed with the results for use on buildings at the rear of the baseboards.

[tedp]

Good to note you've seen the light! I always doubted cassettes since I wouldn't know how to keep the stock on them safely. Long trains may be even more difficult. A proper fiddle yard is cumbersome but it works so much better!

[clayliner]

Good to see you're back to some modelling - with high pressure now forecast you may get a decent chance to catch up. Hopefully I will make it to Sparsholt to see the results.

David.

[invercloy]

It's not often I get to post a photo of the layout in it's entirety, so here we are with one from Narrow Gauge South last weekend...
 

 
This is my friend Andy being left to deal with the hideously long 25+ wagon goods train at the end of the day whilst we went to have a quick peruse of the Parkside stand next door during a quiet 5 mins.
 
Feedback on the layout seemed positive and people actually recognised some progress since it last attended, so that's something!
 
Narrow Gauge South crept up very quickly what with me being away for our wedding anniversary and various other commitments, so there wasn't much preparation time available other than rebuilding the fiddle yard (which proved very beneficial compared to previous exhibitions). That being said, the layout generally ran well, most of the issues experienced were from a mix of stock being used with different couplings and me still not having got enough of my own stock to develop an operating sequence - I'm hoping to put that right before it's next outing to a narrow gauge show which is for NGS in 2 years time. 
 
It was great to get the layout back out for an exhibition and to see so many society and NGRM members. 
 
Thanks to Andy, Chris, James and Jon for operating at various points during the day, and Julien for the loan of his Windle loco.