Long time no post. This week I've been working on some more road sections. Here I'm trying to create a side street, the kind of street you might find in a housing estate rather than a highway.
First thing I knew I wanted to do was create a grass verge. I played around with various ways to make the verge just half the pavement but whatever I did neither the pavement nor the verge looked wide enough. Eventually I decided I would make the verge the full width and that the pavement would appear on the tile connected to it.
So, to build up my verges I started with some 5mm balsa wood. I cut and glued the strips to create grass verges with spaces for crossings or bus shelters etc.
I'm building two of these sections using the same tile. This tile is a little more decimated than I wanted my main streets to be so I decided to use the verges to cover up some of the devastation and I'll be using resin puddles to help with the holes in the asphalt.
Next I base coated the balsa wood before adding a lot of PVA glue to the base. Thankfully, because I'm doing this on a plastic Tablescape tile it wont warp under the pressure of the PVA glue, the same might not be true if I were using wood or cardboard.
So I poured copious amounts of cork boulders onto the glue and waited to see what stuck. I'm using the cork to raise the level of the grass and to give the verge a broken, uneven feel.
After letting the cork dry overnight I then added a layer of Raw Umber (dark brown to you and I) to the whole thing. This would prevent any of the cork showing through the next layer.
The next layer required yet more glue, fortunately there's plenty in the cupboard at work! Here I've added my earth mix to all the verges. It consists of gale force 9 earth, plus rocks, leaves and other bits to give it some texture.
After yet more glue the grass is finally in place. Time to start adding some paint!
Using dark washes I added depth to the various cracks and craters and then using various shades of grey plus a large dry brush and a sponge I added detail and texture to the pavements and the asphalt.
Finally for today I poured out some Realistic Water into the craters to create puddles. I also added some bits of trash and leaves to the puddles so that they would be floating in the water, rather than on top of it. After the resin dries I'll add a second or maybe even a third layer.
Realistic Water takes a day to cure properly so tomorrow I'll be adding more details, like various items of trash as well as sinking some holes for magnets so I can add trees to the verges.
Here's a close up the verge once it dries...
Until the next time, keep on painting!
The Duke
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