Day 6

Right now I feel compelled to work on the ground, the contours.

In the smaller scales you can model the ground level in something like a small quarry as flat and get away with it. Maybe a larger bump and rut in a rough road. You could get away with using different grades of  scenic scatter to suggest the unevenness of the ground.

Not so in 16mm scale you can model every bump and rut, every puddle. You could even model every messy footstep in a muddy morass if you so desired. 

I built up lumps and bumps with offcuts of EPS, and cut away the basic shape for my ground contours in the sand loading area and gave it a skim over with lightweight spackle. There’s lots of lumps and bumps and even a pile of sand shaped out. The areas that I cut away might end up being filled with water for puddles.

Shaping the ground on the sand tipper level

The lower level called for something much flatter. So I gave a general, level coverage to the area. Then thickened that up in places and dragged a piece of strip wood through it to simulate tyre tracks, then just because I was feeling silly. I took a figure and childishly walked him through the thick patches to leave footprints. Right now It looks like someone has been out in a snowstorm so I need to add a wash of earth colour to get rid of the snowscape.

Tyre track and footprints in the snow.

After letting the spackle dry for a while the surface was given a base colour to kill the snowscape.

The mud looks good (though has not reproduced well in this image), and you can still see the footprints among the tyre tracks.

The tipper vignette starts to come together

I sit staring at this mock up of the tipper shelter, and the picture in issue 134 of The Review trying to work out how to make one myself

All in all, another good day with lots of solid progress.