10/16/16 - Working on The Park

These images in this particular gallery don't necessarily appear in the proper order of assembly but you'll get the idea...

Spent time today working on the Park feature. It's right in the front of the layout so I wanted it to look as good as I know how to make it, which at this point, probably isn't all that good. 🙂 I kept putting it off simply because I wasn't sure how I wanted it to look. I'm not sure why I have that fear... maybe it's just because this is all new to me and I don't want to screw it up at this point, I don't know.  So I went ahead and forced myself to jump right in and it seemed to have gone pretty well. 

I added a stone wall around the perimeter of the park and I still need to go back and black wash some of the sections where I joined the pieces of wall together with plaster. I use a stone grey paint to paint them, and once that dries I go back and use some diluted black paint over the top. The black "wash" runs into the cracks between the rocks and gives them definition, and makes them look more like rocks. I've ordered more stone wall for the other side of the park so I can't get it all completed until that comes in. I will be adding a small Christmas tree to the center of the park as well as a bonfire with people standing around. Details make the difference. 

Once I get the landscaping done, I'll then go back over everything with snow and cover it all up. It's almost ashamed to cover up my landscaping but hey... it is suppose to be winter time! 

Filling the pond with water is coming along but it's a slow process. I actually tilted the whole diorama today to get more water in places where I don't have it right now. I'll keep tilting in different directions until it fills up like I want it, and then I'll then go back over it with a some white tint to make it look frozen. I do have HO scale figures that will be skating on the frozen pond. 🙂

I hope to have my street lights plugged back up today as well. I had three lights connected to one junction connector and when I unplugged the one street light to replace it, the wires for the other two street lights came out as well. These wires are SO tiny you can hardly see them, so it takes me a while to get them back in the holes. 

Since there are a lot of images, I've added those in this album:

Wow... can't believe how much I've gotten done today, I'm getting pretty close to being finished! Today I managed to get pretty much all the snow down on everything except the road and park. All of the structures got "snowed in" so you can no longer see the base of the building, it's all blended in by snow. The park got a light dusting of snow but I need to wait until the pond is done before I finish that part. I can start adding certain figures to the layout, I just need to decide where I want them to go. I haven't decided if I'm going to have a vehicle or not, I'm back and forth about that right now.

So, what's left?

• I'll try to get the three street lights hooked back up later today (done)
• Install the  4 trees and some stone wall pieces I ordered today
• Finish the pond
• Snow in the park/road/detail
• Add figures 

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