Modeling Autumn Scenery book and Artisan Rail Media

 
Wow, I see that I haven't posted anything here since November! Yikes! Well, hope anyone reading this had a wonderful Holiday season - and Happy New Year, albeit a couple of months late!

Our new website - Artisan Rail Media - where you can order our new book! 

I have been posting - occasionally - to my Southern New England Railway Facebook group. And you're more than welcome to join the fun there. But I have an excuse for not posting things here - 

When I really get into a project I tend to dive into it, and things like Facebook and blog post updates don't take priority. In other words, I usually float from one project to another - but when I focs - I get really focused. 

For the last few months I've gotten very serious about finishing my Modeling Autumn Scenery book. I've talked about doing this book for a number of years - and have been thinking about it even longer than that! 

This is one of two possible cover photos for the book. 

I'm pleased to say that it is almost done - - to the point that it should be shipped off to the printer sometime in the next two weeks and be ready to ship shortly after that. I'm trying something new - self publishing this book. I considered doing a print on demand option but have been disappointed with the color and printing quality of that approach. 

One of the page layouts for the book. 

A scenery book - especially an autumn scenery book - where color is everything - needs to have the best looking photos possible. So, Christine and I are taking a risk and having the book printed by a print shop here in the US that specializes in short print runs. The test proofs looked great, so we're very excited about getting the book in our hands, and hopefully a LOT of yours! If nothing else we don't want to end up with a garage full of these things!

What's in the book? Essentially it's everything I've learned that I can remember about modeling autumn scenery. Here's the list of chapters: 

Chapter 1: Fall Colors

Chapter 2: Scene Composition and Planning

Chapter 3: Backdrops

Chapter 4: Landforms

Chapter 5: Vegetation and Ground Cover

Chapter 6: Background Trees

Chapter 7: Foreground Deciduous Trees

Chapter 8: Conifers

Chapter 9: The Colors of Autumn

Chapter 10: Autumn Details

Full color. (I've lost count of how many photos). 

Approx. 100 pages. 

And best of all I've been able to include some photos from other models who depict the fall on their layouts. These give some much needed variety to the book, and show how others model other parts of the fall - from early mostly green season, through the peak colors of fall, all the way to the "dead" season. I'm immensely grateful for these friends who have been so willing to contribute to the book! 

Actually, even if you model the height of summer you should be able to find some useful information in this book - just use a lot more green than I do! 

How can you get a copy? Well, we've set up a little business to sell these things (and some other products, more on that in a moment). You can get the book at the special prepublication price of $24.95 + shipping at our new web site - Artisan Rail Media. 

What about those other products? Well, for starters we have Central Vermont boxcar decals, as well as SNE "modern image" decals that we'll list for sale. But first the book must be done! 

Snippets of Progress - Background hills in Stafford Mills

One of the background hills visible behind the green building in Stafford Mills. That building is a Walthers kit leftover from my old layout. I put it here as a placeholder for the MARPM open house ... but I kind of like it! 

From the photos you can tell this is about making background scenery. It started out with cleaning up the workshop - really it did! 

I haven't had much of a chance to work on the layout since the MARPM weekend - fall chores, and a crazy month at work - thanks mostly to the bozos who work in the big dome building down the street from my office - have meant that by the time I get home I'm ready to sit down with Christine and binge watch a few episodes of something on Netflix (current choice is "Suits"). 

When life gets that this I try to come up with a railroad project that's easy to accomplish in spurts - and is something I can leave and quickly come back to. 

Prepping trees is one great project. 

Cleaning up the parts for a resin car is another. 

As I hinted at above, the project started with an attempt to clean up the workshop. I simply couldn't function in the shop any more - every horizontal surface was buried in something. And there was a stack of styrofoam chunks that always seemed to be in the way ... and a box full of Super trees ... You see where this is going? 

Typically I would take the foam, put it in another box and move them and the tree box "out of way" - which really isn't out of the way it's just slightly less under foot. 

So instead of moving that stuff I decided to use it. So over the course of a several short work sessions over a week or so I got some background hills completed. 

The area to the left of the junction with the paper mill peninsula has a spot where the track gets pretty close to the wall - the only real option for scenery there was a tree covered slope. It's also a little hard to reach. So I decided to build the background sloped landforms "off site"  and then add the trees etc... before installing them in place. 

I wanted to get some background scenery in place here before finishing up the area between the track and fascia. The area with the pink foam and unpainted plywood will get an industry of some type...

After cutting the styrofoam hills to size and rasping them to shape I covered them with scatter leaf. It's not terribly obvious here but I use wax paper to avoid gluing the hills to the plywood!

I ended up with three "segments" to create the hillside (Remember, I was starting with scraps!). This is the smallest one after the Supertrees had been added. 

The small hill "section" in place - note how the trees help screen the joint between the layout and the wall. The gravel parking area is tile grout with some fine dirt. 

The other two sections of background hills. Notice how the plywood serves as a palette!!

I have gotten some other cleanup done in the shop. I had been storing the larger sheets of styrene and brick texture sheets in a plastic storage tub on the floor. Problem was that particular tub has a lid that prevented me from stacking other tubs on top of it. So it sat in the middle of the floor (bad) or in front of the shelves on the floor (worse)! I got sick of tripping over the stupid thing.  A couple of additional shelves in one of the Ivar cabinets and all that stuff has a new home. And that tub is going out the door!