It's mats all the way down (NEW snow mat test - Jan 2022)

[Smokeyrone]

Valuable info, and great job!

[Burgundavia]

Been a few months, should document where I am now - the mat is largely done, I've got most of the flocking done.

First up, the mat with the road and stream down:
Base mat with stream and cobblestone done by Corey Burger, on Flickr

Overall, happy with this step, but the cobblestone was hard to it. I ended up having to do a third, thin layer and then roll that in the end. As you can see, I had to go over some places a second time and in some places it was either too dry or too wet.

Then I tested the final placement of the re-used mat bits, which actually ended up working out well too. Testing placement of the reused mat pieces by Corey Burger, on Flickr

Lastly, the mat with most of the flock down and a couple of washes over the whole thing:
Nearly completed mat with most flocking down by Corey Burger, on Flickr

For the washes, I used a mixture of flow aid + ink + water, roughly a few drops of ink in a few ml of water. This flowed really well and when put over the whole mat, helped tie together the different eras/ages of mat.

[Burgundavia]

Right now I am working on final stages. I've already done some edge highlighting and dry brushing of the cobblestone. Need to do another wash on it. Then some rocks and static grass to hide some of the join lines between the old mat pieces and the new mat.

[Burgundavia]

Wanted to show two details that I think I could have done better with another cut.

First where the stream crosses the cobblestone road.

20210926_090523 by Corey Burger, on Flickr

I always intended the cobblestone road to ford the stream here, but there are two parts I don't like about this. First, the rolled caulk here was too thin to take an impression of the cobblestone roller, so it ended up not having enough texture for my liking. What I should have done is built up the road outside the ford a bit more, so the layer of caulk could be thick enough to take texture and still be lower than the rest of the road. Second, the order of when painting and gluing of stone was wrong. I did the following order: cobblestone caulk, 1st drybrush, wash of whole mat, glue down stone, 2nd wash just on cobblestone, drybrush. I should have done all the washing and drybrushing on the road, then done the wash on the road, then the wash on the whole mat save the cobblestone.

Second, the crossing of the mud path over the stream. Again, supposed to be a path, but I changed my mind about what I was going to do here after I did the stream.
20210926_090540 by Corey Burger, on Flickr

I started with a narrow path, that I intended to be just for people walking. Hence the big stones in the river on the right side of the ford. I changed my mind to do a wagon path, so doubled the width of the path. And again, the order mattered. I should have done the ford in the stream first, then the path around it, rather than doing the stream, then trying to retrofit a ford into it.

[Burgundavia]

While I was delayed getting my 3D printed static grass generator finished, I figured I would start on another of my long-term projects: a winter mat. So I did what I usuaully do - a 12"x12" test piece. Always good to try these things out in small scale, which I was very glad I did (and I let it sit for a bit).

So the start of the mat is brown caulk with some dollar stone foam stuck on. I did a random hex pattern in GIMP, imported that Inkscape, then to Silhouette Studio  and then cut it on my Silhouette Cameo 4 cutter (a better Cricut)
Test Snow Mat 1 by Corey Burger, on Flickr

Once that was dry, I painted it up - the stones grey and then the small lakes in a blue
Test Snow Mat painted by Corey Burger, on Flickr

I let that dry and then flocked the whole thing with Woodland Scenics snow flocking.
Test snow mat with snow flocking by Corey Burger, on Flickr
Detail of the same:
Test snow mat detals by Corey Burger, on Flickr

I really like how the snow flocking looks. It really captures snow to me. I ended up sealing the mat with spray adhesive and then spray varnish, rather than my usual medium + water mixture. This ended up being a mistake, but I'll get into that next time, as I need to take a few photos of my fail

[Bloggard]

that's fantastic