12.18.2008

Adding Foliage

In my previous post, I explained how I really enjoyed adding scenery by using a mixture of acrylic paints and ordinary white glue to provide a good base for the ground color (in my case, a grey-ish color) to top off with all the flocking and other sprinkling. In this post, I want to add to that technique with a very cool and very good looking product that I've discovered from our German hobby manufacturing friends at Heki and Noch.

In the below photo, there is some bare scenery to which was applied the 'grey' paint + glue mixture:



Next, I tear a piece of Noch Foliage. This material is similar to the standard flocking material that we have available in the states, except that it comes in a sheet form (without any visible backing) and little pieces can be torn (or whatever size you want) and then placed on the layout:


The foliage material is then simply placed on the wet glue/paint:



And when finished, this very easy, and comparatively 'clean', process yields some very realistic results:



A view of the same 'wall area' with a little more scenery added using the same basic technique:


And an almost final view of the entire area, still, not quite finished, but I think the results are looking good.



What I like most about this process is that it was relatively fast, a lot 'cleaner' than sprinkling powdered flock all over the place (and NO spraying of glue to hold it in place!) and the results turned out quite nice. Below are the main two products I used for the area shown in the photos:





The Heki product, a longer 'wild grass' is similar material on a sheet, but is long grass....a lot easier than some of the electrostatic methods that look way too complicated. The only down side with these products is that they are not the cheapest available, and you'll have to order them as most hobby shops don't stock these items from these companies.

3 comments:

  1. Jerry;

    I have found that the white glue is not necessary. Just paint with acrylics the ground color of choice and sprinkle foam, dirt, sand, whatever you like while the paint is wet.

    Tom Mann

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  2. Tom, I think you are probably right, acrylic paint is certainly sticky enough when wet! But, the white glue is generally 'cheaper' than even the cheapest acrylics, so perhaps its a good way to 'water down' the more expansive material at least?

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  3. My son has shown me how to do blogs and it seems to work in N scale as well as HO scale. His work on the layout is so much more detailed than I was able to teach him when he was a mere child. We had a door core as an N scale layout base and we both learned on that back in the late 70s.
    Good job Jerry!

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