More Landscaping

I cut 8 mm strips of the same cardboard that I'd used for the floors of the brass buildings, painted it gray, and glued it with Scenic Glue along the city streets as sidewalks.

Because this was a winter scene, there was to be snow.  The Styrofoam was already white, but it didn't really look like snow.  I used Woodland Scenics "Soft Flake Snow" (SN140) and their Scenic Cement to make it adhere. Details for "making it snow" are found in my Special Info section.

The completely flat landscape of the Styrofoam didn't seem natural - some contours in the terrain were needed.  Woodland Scenics Foam Putty would do the trick.

I first thought of creating some large hills for the western highlands. I tried filling two of the large Woodland Scenics Random Rock Molds (C1234) with Foam Putty. Allowing these to dry overnight was not enough. When I tried removing one of the "rocks" pieces broke off and some of the Foam Putty stayed in the nooks and crannies of the mold.  Even after allowing the second rock to dry completely, several days, a lot of the Foam Putty stayed in the mold. The pieces I made this way are usable, but don't have the sharp detail on the surface that I'd hoped for. Since they are to be snow-covered, the surface would probably be softened anyhow, so maybe this didn't turn out too badly, but I don't think molding Foam Putty this way is a good idea.

Smaller contours in the landscape can be created with Foam Putty. Trying to mold small daubs of Foam Putty with my fingers produced a fairly ragged surface because the Putty is fairly sticky.  I got nice, rounded contours by wetting the Putty with Scenic Cement. This is covered in more detail in the Special Information section .

The Victorian house looked too elegant to be just facing the street, so I decided that a stone wall would be the proper thing to separate the residents from the rest of the townspeople. I bought 550 scale-feet of Z scale "rustic stone wall" from Paradise City Depot on eBay. I painted the sections with Stone Gray from the Woodland Scenics Earth Colors Kit, then added a few dabs of other stone colors here and there. I left spaces along the street and back yard for gates, which I made from pieces of the fencing left over from the cemetery (see next page). The wall was held in place with Maxi-Cure.