Building A Small Scenic Diorama – Part Two

Rock Painting…

Time to paint the rock section of the diorama. I’m using Woodland Scenics Earth Colours range of pigments, part number C1215. This set contains a set of eight different coloured pigments, a mixing tray & foam/sponge brush. Ideal for rocks, earth, concrete and various other applications on the layout.

Rock painting

Use a method known as leopard spotting to paint the rocks. Add a small amount of coloured pigment of your choice to some water & mix/stir well. Start with two separate lighter colours first. Dab the sponge brush into watered down pigment then dab in a random pattern on your rock area.  Then repeat with the second coloured pigment of your choice. Add more pigment to certain areas than other area’s.

Next it’s time to add a dark wash of pigment to bind & lock the two base colours together. The dark coloured pigment wash should be either black, or one of the darker greys. As before dab the sponge brush, but go over the whole rock area. Pay attention to cracks & crevices. The dark wash will help highlight these & add more depth to the rocks.

Re-fit the bridge

The next stage was to re-fit the footbridge. The footbridge was glued into place as seen on the right. The gap under the ends of the approach decks will be filled in with scatter material.

Culvert & stream bed – 1

Next job was to assemble the drain culvert kit. Once assembled the culvert was glued on to the side of the stream/burn bed. There was a gap between the culvert & the slope behind the culvert, this was back filled in with some more plaster. The plaster then given time to set. Whilst the plaster was setting, using an old flat balded screwdriver, some cracks & gaps was created by dragging the screwdriver blade across the plaster.

The stream/burn bed was given yet another coat of Woodland Scenics Olive Drab Water Undercoat paint. Whilst wet, some fine sand scatter & some small Talus sprinkled on to the wet paint. This formed a sandy & stone stream bed. The Talus was soaked in wash of dark grey to give them a more stone coloured look, prior to being applied to the stream bed.

Culvert & stream bed – 2

Next job was to assemble the drain culvert kit. Once assembled the culvert was glued on to the side of the stream/burn bed. There was a gap between the culvert & the slope behind the culvert, this was back filled in with some more plaster. The plaster then given time to set. Whilst the plaster was setting, using an old flat balded screwdriver, some cracks & gaps was created by dragging the screwdriver blade across the plaster.

The stream/burn bed was given yet another coat of Woodland Scenics Olive Drab Water Undercoat paint. Whilst wet, some fine sand scatter & some small Talus sprinkled on to the wet paint. This formed a sandy & stone stream bed. The Talus was soaked in wash of dark grey to give them a more stone coloured look, prior to being applied to the stream bed.

Track & Trackbed.

Moving towards the rear of the diorama, a layer of ballast was laid & levelled off.This was then glued into place with the tried & trusted 50/50 mix of PVA glue with water & a couple drops of washing up liquid to help the glue mixture spread. Once the glue mixture had set, a section of track was cut to length & laid on the ballast. Another layer of ballast was added to bed the track in place, again another 50/50 mixture of PVA glue & water with couple of drops of washing up liquid added.

Once the glue mixture had set, the track section was vacuumed to remove any loose ballast. The sides of the rails where then painted a steel rail colour using a Woodland Scenics Tidy Track Steel Rail Colour paint pen. The sleepers where given a light weathering using weathering powders & the weathering powders sealed in place using hair spray.

More rock painting.

The rock area next to the culvert was given some light to dark grey washes. In the photo on the right, the washes have just been applied & is still wet. The wash dries within a couple of hours.

More earth pigments

24 hours later allowing time for the rock washes to dry, another mixture of earthy brown undercoat paints were then added to the area between the track & the stream. Whilst the paint undercoat was still wet, a thin loose stone scatter was added to give some more texture.

Lineside hut.

For the next item to go on to the diorama is the L.N.E.R. Concrete Section Lineside hut. The kit was build, door painted & some very light weathering added to it. Once i’d settled on the lineside huts final position it was then glued into place.