As alluded to earlier, suddenly Sandy Shores is no longer a wasteland of... well, sand. It has been transformed thanks to 3 packs of grass tufts and a smattering of fine "turf". Greenery is not something that generally happens on my layouts, so this is all new to me (I don't even own a static grass applicator!).
My plan was to start at the back of the layout (with the mature sand dunes that are vegetation-heavy), by adding dark green tufts. Despite all but one pack being long tufts, only this one pack appears to be long - I wish I'd realised sooner, as the rest of the dunes look a little thin (although I'm glad it's this way around, as the younger dunes at the front would have less marram grass anyway). Anyway, the tufts were glued in place with PVA and left to cure over night. I soon realised that the real mature dunes have more ground foliage (i.e. grass) than I remembered, so this morning was spent carefully adding fine turf around the tufts of grass with a pair of fine-nosed pliers:
Of course, had I paid attention, the fine turf would have been done first which would have saved me hours of work, but oh well; lesson learnt! I have to say though, the result is surprisingly effective given the simple method. Using the fine-nosed pliers meant I could not only blend in the edges, but also force turf between the fibres of the tufts. The mixed green turf meant slight highlights of colour stopped the whole thing looking too uniform. Oh, and the turf was held in place with diluted PVA and washing up liquid using a pipette; much the same way as you would approach ballasting.
Once I was happy with the effect behind the running-in board, I could go on to replicate it across the back of the layout (i.e. around the pond (or dune slack to give its proper name!)). I'm not going to lie, this was a very slow process! As this section is particularly steep, I resorted to taking the whole layout downstairs where there was more room to work. The layout was put on its side, and paper towel placed behind to catch stray fine turf.
Before we carry on, there is a slight disconnect in the timeline here, as the initial turf around the pond was actually started weeks ago! The photos were done in poor light, and the results weren't exactly great either, hence the new method of tipping the layout on its side to apply the turf to the steep bits. For the sake of completeness; the initial turf application was simply two layers; a bottom layer of brown turf, followed by a top layer of the mixed green. Anyway, on with the montage:
Suddenly, it's actually starting to look like a sand dune slack! I must admit, the pond looks a little too blue, but given the deep water pour takes 24 hours to set and needs to be poured onto a completely moisture free surface, I'm not sure which is worse; having a too-blue pond, or having the right colour pond but no water! As the current pond has had several layers of PVA to seal it, I don't think it'll take paint at all well.
In any case, the first job tomorrow is to make the reeds in the middle of the pond as per the real thing at Studland (Shell Bay). Maybe that'll mask the blueness enough given that the slack seems to be almost completely full of reeds!
Anyway, here's a couple shots of the state of play by the time I had finished with the marram grass tonight:
Despite the somewhat sparse marram grass at the front, I think it'll do nicely for the two shows at least. Oh, and before I go to bed, here is one little detail I added recently:
That's right, the kiosk (or beach shack) has now gained appropriate signage. Inside there is a simple nameboard (I was going to fit a roof top one, but it became too fiddly for the time being!). I guess there should really be a menu with prices, but to be honest I don't think you can really see inside from most angles anyway. No ice cream yet, either!
As you can see, I also fabricated a tiny A frame chalkboard out of 10 bits of tiny plasticard and a couple printed homemade signs (not that it's very legible in this scale).
As for the final two days, well, I have a list of 10 things that need completing (including the usual wiring check and track cleaning etc.). It's gonna be a little bit stressful I think, but it always is just before a show!
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