East Works: Trees and details...

Perhaps I should be working on customer models this morning but I thought I'd have a day off and do some more work on East Works, especially after the progress over the weekend...

First job, fix the backscene in place. I suspect I may need to re-visit this in the future, but I wanted something easier to reposition then paste, so used Spray Mount. This was easy to apply and has the benefit of allowing you to reposition - however, it's not permanent so can degrade over time. I'm hoping that if I secure the top edge and from edges with plastic sleeve then this won't be a problem.

I've planted the trees where I thought they worked well in clusters, these are all re-used from Creech Bottom, this was relatively easy just forming a hole in the plaster bandage and polystyrene. Once complete I began adding the hedge along the back edge using a Woodland Scenics sea moss based product, which also gave a shrub for behind the engine shed and around the mill and office buildings. Woodland Scenics foliage in light green was used to blend this in to the grass and hide the joint in the backscene.

Work then moved onto representing the gorse and shrubs visible in many photographs of the area, I chose to use a dark green Woodland Scenics foliage, teased out and pressed into the static grass, which seems to be pretty effective.

The water tower is scrstchbuilt in styrene, Russell's front pony truck is also lurking in the bushes by the shed. I've also created a electricity transformer on posts, visible in photos of the West Works at Norden. Tiny's rear cab plate and corrugated iron next to the plate layers hut still needs planting properly and windows and frames need fitting to the new buildings - the Mill also needs a wash of dirt as well.

What I'm really pleased with is the composition though, because you get real cameos without anything being contrived. The trees and details, as well as the landscape provide view blocks and delight when you see something you've not seen before, and this is exactly as I hoped. The real transformation will be when I build and fit the 'roof' and lighting pelmet, and the view is framed. Hopefully I can get on with that in the evenings this week... A fiddle yard and some small trestles also need building! Plenty more to do, more soon...