Tuesday 8 September 2009

Scenic inspiration from RMWeb

I've been registered on RMWeb for some time but haven't really got on there much in the past. This evening I 'popped in' and stumbled over some really inspiring stuff.

First up, I found this picture of Andy Jones' 00 layout 'Summerborne' which I have to say has some of the most realistic looking model grass I have ever seen:


(more photos from the same thread here).

Andy has a really good photographic 'how to' showing how he achieved this effect using a combination of hanging basket liner, Woodland Scenics foliage, and static grass here, which I shall certainly be trying myself.

I spent a fascinating hour reading through the entire thread (all 17 pages of it!) seeing how the layout has evolved to this stage from fairly humble beginnings a year or so back.

I also came across another layout thread, 'Sparky's EM gauge 'Penhydd'. I haven't read the full thread (18 pages) but looking at the earliest photos and comparing them with the most recent ones the transformation is again pretty dramatic. I love the effect he's acheived with the grass-grown trackwork here:


and here:


(See the rest of this post here and the full thread here.)

What really stands out for me, in the case of both these layouts, is that you don't have to get everything looking perfect immediately - in fact looking at the early photos of both layouts you might not think much would come of them, but with lots of work, general tweaking and incremental improvements over time, things can really come together to look the business. What's also evident is the way that, particularly with scenics, you can just keep adding to it, adjusting it, playing around with it until it looks right, much more so than is possible with other areas.

I shall be visiting RMWeb rather more frequently from now on I think!

3 comments:

  1. Another one that has only recently "come out of the woodwork" and is superb inspiration is Blackgill. The thread that I found is:

    http://www.rmweb.co.uk/forum/viewtopic.php?f=9&t=50218

    I have a number of others that I subscribe to. Give me a shout if you would like the details...

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  2. I agree, Matt...I too have been a dormant member of RM web, not having enough time to look at everything. This layout and the article is superb- thanks for the tip-off!

    Thanks, too, Flymo.

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  3. Thanks Flymo, Blackgill definitely looks good. Yes I'd be interested to know which others you follow...

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