This is a very brief description of how I did the grassy area on my New NCR layout, extracted from my layout engineering thread on The Railwire.
It starts with a mix two colors of unsanded grout to represent the earth. It’s 50/50 of some brown and black.
That mix is a thing you’ll want to play with and figure out for yourself based on the soil color where you’re modeling. In this case I painted the scenery with brown craft paint first, let that dry, then dampened everything with some sprayed water and sifted on the mix.
When that was sifted on I let things dry out, then, and this is freaking annoying, but important, brushed everything that didn’t stick off with a cheap chip brush.
In the photo you can see the tray I made out of some dollar store poster board to catch everything I brushed off. The photo of the bucket above is actually a photo of what I removed in this step. This step is key to economically using the stuff but, more importantly, yields the fine texture of REAL earth. It’s also the reason having a smooth scenic base is important (and why I prefer lightweight spackle over sculptamold).
I then sprayed this all with water again to settle it down and even out the brush strokes.
For the grass areas I used a combination of a handful of ground foams colors:
- Woodland Scenics Yellow Grass
- Woodland Scenics Burnt Grass
- Woodland Scenics Earth
- Woodland Scenics Weeds
- Scenic Express Desert Dust
- Scenic Express Light Brown
- Scenic Express Earth Blend
And a handful of others. For more info see my post about Dead Season Materials.
I look at these like artists paints, I use them to build up layers and vary coloration. It’s really helpful to have a wide selection of them to capture anything you’re looking at.
I sprinkle them on from a decent height to get good dispersion. There’s a decent amount of technique to it all and all I can say is to practice to develop it. Oh, and work from photos!! Scenery is a model like anything else, and you wouldn’t build a model of some piece of equipment from memory. Don’t do that with scenery.
I was shocked at how green things are in December and how, for many of the scenes I was replicating, ground foam was a surprisingly better choice than static grass.
https://conrail1285.com/december-2021-ncr-winter-research-photo-trip-parkton/
As you can see, I typically make multiple passes until I’m happy with the color.
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