Layout In A Box – Demo Micro Layout Project (part 10) The Yard Rough Ground Area

Lets get started…

For the yard ground baselayer, we’re using a piece of thermal lining wallpaper. This as you can see in the photo is lining paper with polystyrene backing. This was a roll left over from a household decorating job. A piece to suit the area was cut to suit & then glued with the paper lining side face down to the baseboard (polystyrene). This was glued using PVA 10 minute fast set wood glue. 

Once the glue had been give time to set, I set about removing some polystyrene in random places to create pot holes using a craft knife. The removed polystyrene bits then vacuumed up.    

Next, the polystyrene was then painted with several coats of Woodland Scenic’s coloured undercoat paints. Here you can see the last coat of Woodland Scenics Earth Coloured undercoat paint just after being painted on. You can see some of the depressed pot hole areas which the paint looks like muddy puddles. Becareful what paint you use if painting the polystyrene, as some times can melt the polystyrene. Water based paints or acrylic craft paints are the best to use on polystyrene.

Whilst the paint is still wet, the first layer of ground scatter material was then sprinkled over the wet paint. I used Woodland Scenics Dark Earth Fine scatter, this was applied using a shaker tub (also by Woodland Scenics) to give an even coating of the dark earth scatter over the wet painted area.

Next a mix of DCC Concepts Legacey N gauge scale Steam Era Shed Black Ballast & Woodland Scenics was spinkled over the area & tamped down with a paint brush. Once happy with how it looked it was left 12 hours to give time for the paint to dry, this was then followed with the application of Woodland Scenics Scenic cement glue. The Woodland Scenics Scenic cement glue contains a pre-wetting agent which helps the glue spread. If you don’t have this glue you can use the likes of a 50/50 mix of PVA glue & water with a drop of washing up liquid to help break surface tension to spread the glue mix. Also look at Deluxe Materials Scenic Spray glue which can be found here:

 https://www.scalemodelscenery.co.uk/deluxe-materials-ad-54-scenic-spray-glue-100ml-1008-p.asp

Whilst the paint is still wet, the first layer of ground scatter material was then sprinkled over the wet paint. I used Woodland Scenics Dark Earth Fine scatter, this was applied using a shaker tub (also by Woodland Scenics) to give an even coating of the dark earth scatter over the wet painted area.

Whilst the area is still wet with the scenic cement glue, we then added some vegetation using Woodland Scenics Coarse Turf scatter. The coarse turf scatter was then placed randomly to represent grass weeds dotted about the yard. 

To represent longer grass bits we’ve used Woodland Scenics FG172 & FG174 Field Grasses. These are cut to a suitable length to create grass tuffs & small areas of grass. The best way i’ve ound to plant these is to place a small blob of PVA glue & place the grass standing upright into the glue.  

Here you can see the yard scene with the tall grass & grass tuffs installed & the glue all fully set. We will be adding some puddles which we’ll look at shortly in this series. The next part coming shortly…

Happy modelling.