Although it could be said that I cheated with Canute Road Quay when I modelled the quayside wall as part of the front facia of the layout; this was not to avoid having to create the water but in fact to maximise the space available with a 12 inch deep baseboard.
There are however a number of representations of water on Canute Road Quay in the form of a few puddles, this post is a quick explanation of the method I used to create the effect of standing water.
Note: the initial steps are carried out before any nearby ballasting or scenic work is carried out, so needs a bit of forward planning / vison of where puddles might naturally occur, remembering that puddles will only form in depressions, hollows, ditches and low points and water finds a horizontal level and wont form on a slope!
Step one, is to paint one side of a thin sheet of clear plasticard with gloss black paint, I used good old Humbrol enamel. It’s a good way to use up a few offcuts.
Step two, cut the now painted plasticard into the rough shape, but wider and longer than the maximum length and width, of the area of the puddle you want to create.
Step three, glue the plasticard paint side down, i.e. the clear plasticard side up, in the location you want the puddle.
Step four, start to build up the required terrain, at this stage you create the final shape of the puddles which is why the plasticard is cut larger than the size of puddle you want and so the terrain edge is on the surface of the plasticard. I generally used Daz air drying modelling clay, see picture left, and used the terracotta colour rather then white or grey so it already has an earth like base colour. In and around the shed area I used a mix of ballast and real ash from my wood burning stove.
Step five, add the foliage as required, I used a variety of lengths of static grass, using the lighter greens and straw colours as wild grass is rarely dark green. In some areas I represented wet earth / concrete using some gloss varnish.
Step six, remember to dust the puddles every now and again, especially before taking any photographs…
Some people have occasionally mentioned the size of the some of the ‘seagulls’, of course they are not seagulls but Herring Gulls and I have used those available from Springside Models. If you want to really see just how bit a real life adult Herring Gulls stand at the sea side with an open bag of chips you will soon find they are much larger than you think!
I have used both their 4mm scale versions and at the rear of the layout a number of their 2mm versions to assist with perspective. Those on the backscene were drawn on in flight as curly ‘W’s with a pencil.
Gerard the Gull was not so much wild when I glued him place but furious… (with apologies to Not the Nine o’clock News…)
And I didn’t even mention ‘The Gulls’… oh Doh! #COYY
Regularly have the clatter of Gulls on my trackroom roof……
But railway modelling friend Rod has one Gull which ‘breaks in’ through his cat-flap to ‘steal’ from the cat’s bowl…….
Oh, almost forgot – an interesting lesson on puddles too!