'odsock Corner - Trees, Leaves and Junk

We left 'odsock Corner' with the office building and walls in place and the next stage was to start to infill the central section of the scene. There needed to be a certain order to this to avoid having to fiddle around adding items under the trees once they were fixed in place. The eagle-eyed will notice that since they were last featured some of the items being used have changed, such is the nature of layout development.

The first notable change is that the post and rail fence that I created to go alongside the office building has been replaced by something a little more makeshift in the form of a wattle fence panel supported by three weathered offcuts of cocktail stick. 

The fence panel itself was one of a couple of items I acquired in the sell off of bits and pieces from the well-known 7mm standard/narrow gauge layout 'Brookford' a few years ago, I think it suits the location well as a makeshift but elegant solution in an estate setting.

Behind the fence another change in plan sees the wagon in the siding changed to the Hudson skip frame with broken axleboxes that I created a few years ago. Until very recently it had been in place on 'The Headshunt' but it actually looks better in context here. In the photo below I was trialling the arrangement of various bits and pieces that needed to be fixed underneath the tree.

The sheeted object is a Ten Commandments casting, the pallet and oil drum Knightwing and the oil can from a Cararama set. The wooden crate and sacks piled on the wagon are Black Dog Mining castings. The paving slabs propped up against the wall are home-made from mounting card. As part of the process of placing these items I wanted to add in a layer of leaf litter around several areas under the trees, This mix of brown scatter, dried tea leaves, crushed Green Scene leaves and various other materials was applied over a layer of WWS basing glue and additionally secured from above with dilute matt medium.

With hindsight I perhaps have some over-sized material in there, the Green Scene leaves did not break down too well in a pestle and mortar, I don't run to a coffee grinder ala Mr Gravett but it would probably be better. I may revisit/refine this mixture before too long. A similar mix was applied on the road side of the wall but I actually think I got the balance about right here in terms of material size. I really must add some vegetation climbing over the wall itself at some point...

Work is now underway to add foliage to the remaining tree and after a bit of a saga I have the spray paint required to add a little colour variation to my base material for bushes and brambles so hopefully if the weather isn't too cold and the workshop not too inhospitable, some more progress will be made soon.

Colin