Landform

It's been a long time since we last looked in on Corri-Llyn. I'll admit I had lost a little bit of love for it. Always seems to happen with layouts I try to make, when they reach that stage of track laid and painted but bare scenery the creative energy just seems to go. I hear it's quite a common thing though at that stage. Probably the lack of colour or the the overwhelming dullness of those there are.

This last weekend though, after getting it out of storage and admittedly having some fun running in the new Sentinel tram, I decided to make a proper start at some of the landforms on the corners.

Everyone has there own ways of doing landscaping so don't take any of this as a 'must do' guide. It just worked for me for a small layout. Digging into the large stack of 2mm card stock I started out by cutting some of it into thin (roughly 5mm) strips, and then essentially basket weaving the skeleton of the land, the weaving helping to avoid unnatural flat areas.

From there the frame was given a dose of the Neil Buchanan 'Art Attack' treatment and covered in a couple of layers of strips of kitchen roll liberally coated in PVA glue, creating a fairly solid shell when dry. Finally a thin layer of filler was spread on top to smooth out some traces of the frame that were still sticking through.

Sanded down slightly after the filler dried, it doesn't look half bad to me. It's also helping to properly visualise the scenics. For example I had earmarked the corner above for a potential churchyard, just implied with a couple of gravestones behind a wall at the side of the line, but now I'm wondering if it might be a little too steep. It's not a major problem or even a major loss, but it's interesting to see how this develops.