HO scale train table layout mountain and scenery

I was able to do more work on my HO scale train table layout mountain and scenery. As this was the first time I’ve done scenery I was a little apprehensive, but I decided to just dive in. I taped up the rock castings and sprinkled grasses all over the mountain. The lid on the shaker I was using fell off at one point and dumped a lot of grass in one spot, so I tried spreading it out with a brush. That caused it gather in little clumps and although I thought I would have to vacuum it all up, it looked pretty good as tiny bushes at the base of the mountain.

I probably went overboard adding grass everywhere, but it looks pretty good. Previously I mentioned that my rock faces and portals were too light since I probably used too much water in the washes. They still looked too light like they weren’t painted/stained at all.

I wanted to darken them, so I measured out the washes better this time. I’m still not sure if I’m doing it right, but I used three colors on the rock faces and on one of the stone portals. I think this time the black wash was too dark, but everything is looking a bit better. The portal looks too dark to me though, so I may end up redoing it again.

I then started adding some trees and bushes. I had a bag of Bachmann Scene Scapes Conifers that I didn’t really like – they look like pipe cleaner wrapped around a plastic stick. But from a distance you can’t really tell, so I stuck those in the back of the layout. I also had a package of ready made Woodland Scenics Conifers which looked a lot better than the Bachmann ones. Along with a few generic pines, these will make up the rest of the forest on the mountain. I do have several larger and more detailed trees from JTT Scenery Products but I want to use those in the more visible areas around town and towards the front of the layout.

There was also a lot of Woodland Scenics Poly Fiber that I put in patches throughout the mountain top. I may be using it wrong though – some of it looks good but in other spots it doesn’t look quite right. I think I need to make it more sparse instead of being as thick as it is. It might just be a matter of pulling it apart more since it looks too puffy in some areas.

Other than that, some Woodland Scenics Clump Foliage was used to make bushes. I ended up using a lot of them around the castle ruins since the ground wasn’t even and I had to use a bit of styrofoam to prop up one end to make the ruins level. That caused a gap on one side which is conveniently covered by a lot of bushes.

I still need to finish building my town hotel and two or three other kits. I believe I have two wood kits left (a gas station and a general store), and a plastic kit (restaurant). Getting some scenery on the table has really reinvigorated me and it’s made me want to get back into building kits. I don’t even know how long it’s been since I put the hotel on hold.

In the meantime I should really start working on that town layout. Woodland Scenics recently put out a new light system which looks really easy to set up and I want to incorporate that into my layout as well. I also need to figure out how I’m going to run the main street from the town to out-of-scene. I plan on having a main street and maybe one or two smaller secondary streets for residences, and I wanted the main street to run over the tracks somewhere. But since the town is elevated the road will need to slope down to the tracks somewhere. More things to think about.