Scenery for Ranuska

Work in Ranuska has been slowly ticking along, helped somewhat by the excellent modelling weather we've been having. Week after week of rain makes it quite nice to retire down to the garage after dinner and listen to the raindrops on the garage door as I quietly beaver away.

And beavering away I have been. Lots of scenery work has been done, in fact despite everything being in boxes I've been romping along on foresting Ranuska.

Rapid Forests

In the last update I had painted everything a good brown colour (Resene Sambuca). Next step is to slather on a good coating of PVA glue and start sticking down lumps of lichen. I'm lucky that I have dozens of containers of old lichen scraps lying around from previous scenes and railways, so I would just grab a handful and spread it over the PVA.

For some of the more vertical areas I used either Woodland Scenics Polyfiber, or Woodland Scenics Foliage material, gently teased out and stuck into place. This gives a good representation of vines and ivy.

Next step is to take a can of extreme-hold hair spray (I use Helena brand, $7 from the supermarket for an extra large container) and spray it liberally over the lichen from about an inch above. Then I grab one of my shakers of coarse ground foam and sprinkle it over the lichen. I start with the a gentle dusting of my darkest coarse foam (Woodland Scenics dark green coarse turf). Then I apply a thicker coating of a medium-dark green from a local supplier, and stick everything down with another coat of hair spray. Now some medium green from the local brand, and then finally a coat of medium green WS coarse foam. The WS medium green is quite a bit lighter than the rest, however after spraying a final layer of hair spray over, it all blends together.

Next step is to add Sedum trees. These are the dried seed heads of Sedum that mum saves for me, sprayed with yet more hair spray and then various shades of ground foam sprinkled on. Larger clumps can be split into smaller stems and planted among the lichen. Towards the edges I use smaller "trees" and bed them right into the lichen to create a gradual transition.

This looks pretty good but I want an even more overgrown look. Studying the woodland across the street from us, all the trees merge into each other and vines cover everything. This is pretty easy to recreate with Woodland Scenics foliage material, which is just dyed polyfiber style material with foam glued on.

I rip off a small square of the foliage material from the pack and start teasing it out.

A little goes a long way. I then spread this over the canopy to fill in the gaps between trees.

I have a bag of dark, medium, and light green which I apply in order to the scenes. Finally I spray it with even more hair spray and dust on some more ground foam, hair-spraying that in place too.

Finished result is one very overgrown patch of jungle!

Chinese palm trees

After our honeymoon in Rarotonga, I knew that Ranuska needed lots of palm trees. Raro was covered in the things and so now nothing says tropical seaside town to me quite like palm trees. Of course making palm trees by hand is nigh impossible, so I hit the internet to see what was available.

A few of the regular scenery companies make palm trees, out of pure gold if the prices are anything to go by. So I looked on eBay and sure enough some factory in China is catering to my needs with about 8 different varieties of palms in dozens of sizes. I decided that TDF50 was what I wanted and ordered a hundred pack for Â£8 including shipping.

I wasn't too surprised at how plastic they looked when they arrived, or that they differed somewhat from the very realistic photos in the auction. However they were certainly good enough for my needs, and with a little attention could make great trees.

First step is to give them a coat of paint, since most palm trees aren't translucent.

I stuck them into a block of wood so I can do 30-odd at a time. A can of cheap green spray from the local auto parts shop handles the colour, however now I have a bunch of glossy palm trees.

So next step is to air brush on some Tamiya acrylic form our local Jaycar/hobby store. I found a couple of greens that would do the trick. Here is after and before:

Planting is pretty easy, just poke a hole in the plaster shell under the scenery and push them in.

Sanatorium funicular

The Ranuska Sanatorium is perched high up on the hill commanding a stunning view of all of Ranuska. This is great but does pose a little bit of a problem for guests who don't arrive by blimp or private helicopter.

Thankfully a funicular is being constructed to help ferry passengers up and down the imposing hillside.

It is constructed from some spare code 40 rail, soldered up into 6mm gauge track and with some sleepers hastily and crudely stuck in place. This assembly was then hot glued into place and the gaps between it and the scenery filled with a mix of ballast and spackling. I wasn't overly happy with this look so I mixed up some dilute plaster and sloshed it over the ballast and sleepers. Due to the incline this had the effect of washing down the slope, much as mud and soil might on the real thing. Once dry I went over with some dilute Vallejo "light mud" acrylic paint to blend all the colours together and am very happy with the result now.

Every funicular needs a station of course, so I quickly made one up out of balsa and stained + dry brushed it to look good and tired.

A good dose of PVA and some pins hold it in place while everything dries. I'll build a small platform for the funicular once I've built the funicular.

Excuse the big blob of PVA still drying.

And finally, some scenes around Ranuska. I'm really excited by how well it's all coming together.

That's all for now, next time you hear from Ranuska it'll be from its new home in Lett Street.