Thursday, July 11, 2019

Test piece

Some people think that those of us who do things in print are modelling gods who get everything right first time. Sadly, they are wrong, it's just that there often isn't space on the page to show all the earlier attempts.

No problem here on the blog. Here is something I tried out for a project you'll soon see. I'd ballasted 009 track with some Woodland Scenics grey ballast, and felt it looked a bit plain.

Wondering what I could do to improve matters, I decided that working on the layout itself was a bad idea, at least until I could be sure of the results.

Solution - make up a short test piece. Stick a bit of track to some foam, spray it brown and then ballast. Just like the stuff on the model.

Then I messed around with dry-brushing and powders to see how they looked.


Horray for test pieces!

1 comment:

Huw Griffiths said...

I reckon that building test pieces makes a lot of sense - although I must admit that a large proportion of my modelmaking output seems to consist of them.

Of course, I tend to call them something different - usually something along the lines of "proof of concept" - but, effectively, they're still the same sort of fare.

I can't help wondering if this sort of thing might have been one of the main "drivers" behind the RMweb / BRM "cake box challenges" - trying to get people to build a deliberately limited section of scenery, presumably as a way of trying out different techniques.

This all sounds fair enough to me - even if scenery has never really been my "specialist subject".

Personally, I've always been rather more interested in the stuff that moves on railway lines - rolling stock - locos (especially if the real things are powered by Diesel or electric) - and especially trams / railmotors / railcars / railbuses / multiple units.

This might explain why I'd be very keen to see a revival of 2015's motive power themed RMweb challenge - preferably as a "rolling challenge" (the year they get finished being the year they get entered).

Will this happen in due course? I've got no way of knowing - but I know I'm not alone in hoping that it does.