As I've been looking at the layout under various lights, it's occured to me that the sand is too bright and too yellow. Yes, I know it's real sand I've used, but something that is quite often forgotten is that every colour must be toned down on a model, otherwise it just looks wrong.
With that in mind, and also the fact that the sand is still patchy; with the paint underneath showing through, despite having a couple layers of sand on the layout, I decided to paint over the whole thing. So I began to trial various pots of emulsion - all in varying shades of yellow and white. Eventually it turns out that the best solution was a very watery coating of Wickes own brand of masonry paint "Soft Sand":
With apologies for the weird lighting and lazy camera usage, here's the difference...
The patchy bit of play sand can be seen in the centre, with the painted sand all around it.
The patchy bit of play sand can be seen in the centre, with the painted sand all around it.
And now here's something a little special - with the 3 LED spotlights (originally intended for Old AGWI Rd.) we have a nice warm (but not too yellow) colour for the sand dunes. Much more in keeping! And yes, I finally found the backscene from Calshot... although the bad news is that not only is it crinkled, it's also gone mouldy - thanks to a damp wall by the shelving it was on (how it got there, I've no idea).
Nethertheless, I plan (on a nice day) to visit the seaside and take a few new panoramas so that I can get them professionally printed. Even in this state, I think you'll all agree it has lifted the appearance of the layout humongously!
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