ranuska

Ranuska gets a beach!

After months of inactivity on Ranuska, I decided to take a break from bathroom renovations and dedicate a bit of time on a rainy weekend afternoon to finishing off Ranuska. The single largest gap in Ranuska? No sea!

So wasting no time I got stuck in. I dug out my black paint and gave all the deep water areas a good coat of black, with just the tiniest hint of dark blue mixed through. Around the beach I painted the same sand colour (Resene Sandcastle) down onto the ocean area, then feathered it into light blue. Looking at photos from tropical paradises, the water is so clear that the transition from beach to sea barely even changes colour.

Around the rocks I mixed up a thin wash of brown (Resene Sambuka) and muddied up the black around the rocks, then washed the bottom inch of so of the rocks with the brown. Later I did the lower half inch or so of the rocks with a dilute black wash. Being plaster the rocks just suck up the colour and look wonderfully worn and...

Poles and lights for Ranuska

The cobblestones are now all completed on Ranuska. Each morning I would do a few minutes work while running my shower, and by the end of the week it was all done. Then came the fun of painting it; long story short it took three attempts to get the right finish. First attempt was too blue, second attempt washed out all the detail; final attempt worked well though. I made up a dark wash that settled into the crevices, then I dry brushed on some very light dirt colours; lots of browns and tans, no greys. Then, the magic step: I mixed up a very watery mix of the same "sandcastle" paint that I had painted everything else with. I airbrushed on several layers of the sand mix, and now the cobblestones nicely blend in with the rest of the scenery. Job well done.

Hmm... I need to ...

Happy new year

Happy new year! December was a wash with nothing being achieved before we flew down to Christchurch for xmas. I did however get a little bit of modelling in while I was away, having a bit of fun with the Jörgen Edgar technique for making N scale locomotives quickly. And come Christmas day, I was pretty spoilt with models, kitsets, people, tools, and even books. So no complaints here!

Ranuska scenery

Ranuska is coming along well. I have made an executive decision not to use the "tall skinny house", it just didn't seem to fit with everything else. It will be used elsewhere I am sure though. Instead I have turned the area into a small overgrown park.

Just need to add a picnic table or two and maybe some raco...

Ranuska scenery

With the sanatorium complete, attention is moving to the quaint seaside settlement of Ranuska...

It's no secret that I love doing scenery, and I've been making good progress this week. Here is a before shot from last Saturday:

First of all I had to build up the contours a bit to make the landscape a bit more believable. A block of polystyrene was soon sculpted into a crude shape.

Three buildings, each on its own level.

One of the things I've struggled with in the past is attaching my buildings to the scenery....

A home for the sanatorium

The saga of the Sanatorium continues...

It's funny, but after months of stop-start progress getting the sanatorium completed, I am not on fire and have achieved more in a few days than I have in months!

First up were some holes for the lift towers. Luckily I had a hole cutter that was just a few mm bigger than I needed. It made short work of the plaster shell / polystyrene core scenery. Then I was able to gingerly lower it into position and admire the result:

Wow!

The holes were miles too deep, so I made up packers to raise them back to the right height. Once the spirit level was happy I wrapped the tubes in masking tape and made up some sculptamold to fill in the around them.

Sanatorium progress - the final sprint

The saga of the Sanatorium continues...

More sanding, more painting

Just when I thought I'd done enough, I had still more painting and sanding to do! The final stage of it though. After sanding everything smooth I had to paint the top black to prevent any light seeping through.

You can see that, for some reason, the bits that I filled with baby-epoxy-powder have a different look to those that are just styrene!? Easily fixed with a few more coats of white, finished off with some white Vallejo acrylic airbrushed on for a nice uniform finish. End result is very smooth and white looking!