My experiment in groundwork/scenery

[compressor man]

Tried a 'really' low-tech scenery method today and would like some opinions on it. I think that it turned out pretty nice and for the price (almost nothing) it is a pretty sweet deal. The whole scene is about 3" square. The base is builders foam and the ground cover is two grades of sawdust mixed with durhams water putty. The leaves are real crumbled up leaves and the puddle is just 5 minute epoxy mixed with mineral spirits with a drop of acrylic paint in it. The grass is my daughters hair chopped up fine with a little green dye added.

[lab-dad]

Not bad for free!

The earth needs more "layers" or variation in size(s)
From large to small. Yours looks more like mud, which is not necessarily a bad thing.

The leaves have good color but look like ground up leaves. Scale leaves are hard to do, but a few well placed would go far. Especially the one in the puddle - a focal point IMO.

The "grass"; well grass dont grow like that. It comes up from the ground.
Yes sometimes pieces blow around but normally it is "growing"
Also by growing it is usually alive (or more alive) in the center and dying as it moves out.

Hope this helps,
marty

[compressor man]

Not bad for free!



The "grass"; well grass dont grow like that. It comes up from the ground.
Yes sometimes pieces blow around but normally it is "growing"

Not after a windy rain storm... the kind that leaves puddles on the ground

[finescalerr]

If your daughter has green hair .... Well, now that I think about it, why wouldn't she?

As for the little diorama, despite Marty's comments (and I think he makes good points) it looks good. If it were mine I would consider it about half finished and would act on whatever comments I might receive to make it even better, kind of like following a tutorial. It's fun to do and I've learned a lot from that approach.

Either way, from an artistic perspective, consider adding something vertical as a stronger focal point, even if something as simple as a post next to the puddle.

Russ

[compressor man]

Hi Russ,

Glad you liked it, and no my daughters hair is not green This was never intended to be a diorama, it was merely an experiment to see how Durhams putty would do in groundwork. Yes, I agree that I could go on detailing the scene but it is probably doomed to the trashcan. I do feel that the putty/sawdust mix has potential in this application. Especially when some more and different textures are added to the mix.

Chris

[Alexandre]

Agree with Marty's points.
That's a good looking promising start, but it could be improved a lot with minimal work.
- Varying texture and coloring as well as wetness/dryness (?word?) of the ground.
- Dead leaves are a bit random so far, you might try finer particles to fill the area between the larger ones.
- The concrete slabs are nice, but a bit soft in texture.
- Your puddle suffer from classic still water epoxy resin puddle coloring. It's too red (a matter of taste of course) but epoxy always looks orange/red when used over earth/mud colors. you might want to try to draw ochre/sand/buff clouds in it with oil paint.

I've just done a very similar looking groundwork (can be found of page 4 and 5 of this thread)
http://www.finescalerr.com/smf/index.php?topic=2007.60

[compressor man]

Still working on my experiment with low/no cost scenery. I have made some changes based on the recommendations that I have received here.

Chris

[michael mott]

I'm no expert in these matters (who is) but the first pic in the last post looks to me as if someone with a square foot splashed up a bunch of sludge onto the surrounding space.
The grass looks too round and even, a blade of crass is called a blade for the obvious reason that it is a blade shape.

other than that it looks very interesting.

Michael

[compressor man]

I'm no expert in these matters (who is) but the first pic in the last post looks to me as if someone with a square foot splashed up a bunch of sludge onto the surrounding space.
The grass looks too round and even, a blade of crass is called a blade for the obvious reason that it is a blade shape.


Michael

Gee Michael, any other insults you feel like sending my way? Constructive criticism is fine and helpful but I just take your comments as downright  mean-spirited. I am quite new at this and have a lot of work in this (admittedly a test) piece and was proud of it. I am sorry it is so obviously crappy to you.

Chris

[Malachi Constant]

Chris --

First of all, welcome!

Second ... on this particular forum ... all of the feedback is intended to be constructive (quite certainly including Michael's) ...

HOWEVER ... and this is a VERY BIG HOWEVER ...

On this particular forum, we don't gandy-dance around the terminology ... the camraderie & friendliness is assumed and generally unspoken ... the criticism is offered in a rather direct (and perhaps seemingly blunt) fashion ... BUT ... NO-ONE here is mean-spirited ... each participant judges his/her own work as "harshly" as anyone else's ... and ALL of this is done in the spirit of doing better. 

It can be extremely deflating at times ... I have certainly found that ... in each and every case, however, the criticism has helped me see my work thru another (or several other) set of eyes ... and in each and every case, the criticism has given me at least an opportunity to improve ... whether or not I end up meeting the challenge successfully.

I really truly mean the "welcome" part ... and hope that you will believe / understand what I am saying about the "frank" (or "blunt") tone here ... and keep coming back!  (Have a look at a couple of my threads here ... these buggers have driven me to do a number of things over-n-over until I either got them right or at least made them better ... it's frustrating at times, but for me quite inspiring ... I hope you'll stick it out and find the same benefits.)

Cheers,
Dallas

[1-32]

hi there i liked your first effort.
take the comments with a grain of salt and do what is right for you after all it is a hobby
yer right i take my hobby very seriously.
kind regards kim

[Malachi Constant]

PS -- If you don't have a static grass applicator, there is a simple & effective way to make the grass "stand up" using spray glue.  It's illustrated nicely in this video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d2rOO1hN8_U

Mind what he says about allowing the adhesive to get tacky before dabbing the grass "cigar" and it'll work quite well.

Cheers,
Dallas

[finescalerr]

Chris, as the owner of this forum, I would urge you to believe every word Dallas wrote. This isn't where you want to go if your ego requires (meaningless) compliments. The real compliment is that an expert considers your work good enough to criticize. That means he thinks you have talent and potential.

If that is difficult for you to deal with then, honestly, this would be the wrong place to post anything. If, on the other hand, you can put aside your annoyance (something we all feel initially when we hear criticism), you may realize the comment was valid.

If you still consider it a nitpick, the final thought I will leave you with is that, when your work reaches a certain level, the only criticisms left are nitpicks. Learning from them lifts your modeling from good to excellent.

Can ya dig it? Groovy.

Russ

[marc_reusser]

Chris,

Dont get offendd or discouraged....we all get dinged and whacked upon at some point.....it good for the soul, drives one to drink, and pushes one to keep improving.

I like the new changes, and think you're on the right track. My two critiques would be:

1. The leaves themselves; the ground-up material you used seems a bit too thick and have a gloss finish that is a bit out of scale, and when it broke/ shredded, the shapes came came out a bit too hard edged. You might want to have a look at some things from the spice cabinet like dried oregano, or thyme.....it tends to be thinner, break more irregularly, and have a bit more surface texture.

2. I  am not sure about the paver texture...it seems overly rough, for cut edge stone material.....so absically just curious what type of paver you are representing, and if you used a reference image to work from.

Cheers,

Marc

[compressor man]

Hi Guys,
Thanks for all of the welcomes here, greatly appreciated. Yes, constructive criticism is welcomed by me but when that criticism is in the form of a (semi-insulting) joke then it becomes a little more bitter.

Moving on from that, I wish that this would have turned out looking a little better. Obviously the ground up leaves (I will surely try the spice cabinet next time) will not work in the scales that I am working in (1-35 to 1/24). The pavers were really there just to take up space and be a 'foil' to the ground, they were basically just tossed there. I used no reference and had nothing in mind when I made them. The whole reason for doing this was to focus on the ground texture. Just curious on what you guys typically use for this, my recipe consisted of varying degrees of sawdust mixed with durhams putty. I thought that it looked pretty good...but oh well  .

Also,thanks Dallas, I have seen that video, this is basically what I did but it didnt seem to turn out as intended  . What do you guys use for grass in this big scale? Most of the commercially available grasses seem sized for RR scales which is why I tried the hair.

Chris