Happy New Year to you all.

Unfortunately work and illness has kept me away from a lot of hobbying, but I did manage to to paint up a few more figures. The last 2 I did today on a slow Sunday afternoon.

Hopefully this year will be better and I can get back to some railway modeling.

Hi all.

The second half of this year has been a bit slow model train wise. I did manage to paint a few figures but not much else.

Here's hoping 2018 is a better year.

Cheers.

Neil.

I wanted a figure to look like he's climbing up onto my switcher but I didn't have any suitable so I decided to have a go at converting one.

I started with a figure that was close. Unfortunately his arms were too wide and both his legs were straight.

First I measured the width of the handrails. Then I cut the arms of with a sharp hobby knife. By slow removing a little bit of plastic at a time, and constantly offering up the arms I got the correct width.

I've done a little more on the yard office scene. Still planing the rest of the scenery that needs to be done, but I think I have nearly got it finalized.

An over view of the scene. The road still needs finishing and a large tree needs to be planted in the right corner behind the earth mover.

Old rusted I beams, plus general trash.

I've finally started to add scenery to my layout (sort of layout, it's only 4'x1'). I still need a few items but I thought I would start with what I have.

The main things I have to add is a large tree behind the old earth mover, and some corn in the corner.

The road will be painted the same colour as the crossing and the front of the yard office still needs blending in.

I wanted to have a go at painting brickwork so decided to start a project I have been planning for a while. A few years ago I got hold of some plastic brick sheet and some plastic sliding doors. The idea is to make a back scene out of foam card and clad it with the brick. Adding the doors will allow me to spot cars there.

So I decided to do 1 section to see how it came out. I did this as a rundown part.

I was asked if I would paint a few N scale figures and I have just finished them. The sculpts are not the best, but once on a layout they will look fine I think.

I've added a few tools to my shanty scene plus I've rusted up an old earth mover to park next too the shanty.

The 2 figures I painted earlier are also in their place. Now I just need to work on tying it all together.

I had a few hours spare today so I decided to make a wheelbarrow to add to the shanty scene.

It's a 3 part plastic Preiser model and went together easily. I started by painting it black, then a dark brown colour. Once dry I stippled on some burnt sienna artist acrylic. I let this dry for about an hour then gave it an all over thin coat of brown wash I also added a black wash to the bucket base.. Again let it dry and stipple a few random spots of the burnt sienna. 

A nice little project that dose not take long but adds some interest to a scene.

I've done a bit more work on the shanty for my yard. I added the steps, lights, coal bin and some loose bits. It still needs a lot of extra tufts bushes etc added but I only have the one size tufts right now. I will also add some spilt coal around the base of the bin.