A little slice of Oz

[danpickard]

I am building this piece as a gift for a good friend, who has offered to give me some help with a few locomotive construction jobs (not something I confess to being particularly experienced in, so his guidance is greatly appreciated). Everytime he catches up with me at an exhibition, he usually jokingly asks if I'm building all these gum trees just for him (I often do exhibitions where I make my gum trees all weekend). So this time, these trees actually are for him. With him being a great loco builder, he often also exhibits with a small display of his assembled efforts. I thought it would be nice for his fine works to have a more decorated display base, than just the table.  This scrap piece of chipboard was sitting out in the shed, and was the ideal size for the display base. Victorian Railways narrow gauge is 2'6" (or On30, which he models in as well), so I have hand laid a short stretch of track.



There are about half a dozen of my smaller gum trees running along a short barbed wire fence line. 











Last pic is just a bit of a scale reference with a loco and some rolling stock in place.  Still needs some further dirt dusted into place, and a clean trim around the display base.  Some decent outdoor photos woldn't go astray either

Cheers,
Dan

[artizen]

What did you use for the ferns and undergrowth? That looks as good as the trees.

[danpickard]

Hi Ian,
The ferns are a mix of preserved asparagus ferns (pickled in coolant fluid, then hit with a bit of spraypaint before planting), and some other preserved fern material put out by Bradgon (Finescale Forest).  The undergrowth bush is just some woodlands foliage material, and the smaller clump trees are the super tree armature (Scenic Express gear) with Noch leaf scatter over as foliage.  The creeping ivy is MiniNatur maple foliage.  The long grass is MiniNatur gear with some drybrushed highlights.  There is also a healthy scattering of fine ground twigs, dried tea leaves and peeled bark scraps.

Cheers,
Dan

[finescalerr]

You are really an excellent scenery builder and it's a pleasure to see you bring even a foot long diorama to life. -- Russ

[marc_reusser]

I agree with Russ. Well rendered and crafted little scene. The only thing that grates on me is the barbed wire fence. The wire seems too thick and wavy...especially compare to the finesse of the rest of the scene...and unfortunately really catches my eye.

M

[artizen]

I tried the forest mix by Blagdon. The cockroaches ate most of it before I could use it. What is left is now in a sealed container but I think it would have a very short life if I used on a layout here in Brisbane.

Sorry - but I agree with Marc - the barbed wire really needs sorting (after his comment I had to go and look at it again). Perhaps you could have a go at making your own? You seem to have perfected the art of scenery so a little bit of wire can't be too hard? Despite that small glitch, this scene is way better than I can achieve - I can come close if all my scenery comes out of a box though!

[danpickard]

Thanks all, and point(s) on the wire taken.  A few of the old fence images I used as ideas had fairly loose stringing of the wire (maybe because of broken strands along the fenceline?).  Perhaps the loose wire is just something that doesn't translate well in modelled form.  The wire is photoectched 1/48 stuff from Eduard, and haven't seen any smaller, unless anyone is familiar with a smaller scale etch that could be used.  May have a go at giving the next strands a bit of a twist to see if that takes some of the "thickness" out of it, and also keep it on a better tension.

Oh, and Ian, I usually give most of my scenery a bit of an overspray with some bug surface spray every so often.  Makes it a bit easier to keep the spiders out of the tree canopies, and may also keep your cockroaches in check.

Cheers,
Dan

[danpickard]

And a few minutes later...

Un-threaded the wire strands, gave a gentle twist, re-threaded and pulled in at a bit tighter tension (but the fine etch can snap pretty easily under tension, so its a bit of a nervous stretch of the wire).  Maybe a bit better, but probably let down still by the flatness of the photoetch.  I've seen a few 1/35 hand twisted barbed wires, but not much in the slightly smaller 1/48.  Might have to dig up some magnet wire and have a play...





Cheers,
Dan

[marc_reusser]

Not to hijack the thread...but fwiw and as example, the barbed wire for this dio was all hand twisted (something I never want to do again  )...and it too has some of the wavy issues ...and you can see, even though the wire is more fine overall...it still comes off a bit heavy and overscaled. (The dio was built by Jim Wilke..I only did the wire, the base, and took the photos)

[Junior]

Great little diorama! The ground cover is excellent and the barbed wire looks much better now.

Anders 

[danpickard]

Thanks for that link (although you need to jump in to edit it, since it repeats itself in the link, so it doesn't work...one too many cut'n'pastes).  I've seen a number of different barbed wire collections in the past, and it's amazing how interesting a collection of old wire can become.  Unfortunately I have to say that the comments about the wire are correct, especially since most of the wire used here in that era would have been twisted wire strand with wrapped barbs, not the flatter rolled metal varieties.  Curse these good digital camera's that see everything!

Cheers,
Dan

[okiecrip]

looks real good

[Ray Dunakin]

Dan, the wire looks better in your second group of shots. Not perfect but definitely improved.

Marc, I think the stuff you hand-twisted looks great! But I don't blame you for not wanting to do that again!