More progress on the Curve

Please know that anyone impacted by Hurricane Ian is in our thoughts and prayers. Like just about every place else on the east coast this past weekend was a wash - literally - so I spent some time in the basement. My original goal was to get the track laid on the paper mill peninsula. That requires two custom curved turnouts. The track gods were not smiling on me - so after a completely frustrating several evenings and most of Saturday trying to build the fool things I pitched the bits of rail and nursed my burnt fingertips. Sunday was spent as far away from track laying as possible - adding an additional layer of scenery textures to Kempinski Curve. Nothing particularly unique - I used the same materials and techniques I've shared before. I still need to add a couple of more foreground trees to the left of the boxcar in the shot below:

I'm going to do battle with the track laying dragon again this evening - if success again eludes me I'll advance away from the enemy and regroup after the MARPM open house. 

Planning some foreground trees

See how the building and track look as if they're "floating" in the photo above? They look as if they've been plopped on top of the world and are not really part of it. What can be done to fix this? 

I've become convinced that one of the best ways to truly "set" a scene is to include some scale (or near scale height) trees. I've also found that by placing scale height trees closer to the foreground you can create the same sensation that forced perspective creates. 

I made up the base armatures out of Crepe Myrtle tips (For more detail on how I build up these armatures see THIS POST, or search the archives for "Crepe Myrtle") but haven't yet put the finer branch structure or foliage in place. But I dug those out yesterday and played around with several of them to get identify the best choice for the area around Kempinski Curve. 

I think even with the "basic armatures" you can see how it "blends" the track, and the building to the left, into the scene instead of having them stick out. I'm hoping the finished trees, properly colored with smaller branches and some leaf texture will really set the scene - late fall in New England.