YPU's 6mm Scenery

[YPU]

Best river build I've ever seem!


Train tracks look great, but z scale track could be easier?

Cheers!

Honestly the track isn't the issue really, easy to print and I can make it any length and angle I want. The way i mount it is what I'm grinding my gears about.

[Pattus Magnus]

Just wondering, too, about the sleepers, do they have to be painted? I know that for some purposes concrete has been replacing wood sleepers. I don?t know if that is the case in Japan/ the sci-fi setting you?re depicting, but if it is, it would give you an ?out?!

[fred]

Given the amount of oil and dirt down the middle of most railway tracks, are the sleepers a different colour from the ballast?

I feel the ballast outside the tracks might be a different colour to that inside the tracks (due to dirt) - feel I will pay more attention next time a catch a train.

I do like the idea of the tracks being on a small embankment to make them have a game play effect rather than being a kind of flat fence (in game terms)

[Wirelizard]

Highly detailed small scale scenery is always great, really enjoying this build and glad to see it resurface.

Looking forward to whatever you do with the railway bridge vs hex layout issue, too.

[YPU]

Just wondering, too, about the sleepers, do they have to be painted? I know that for some purposes concrete has been replacing wood sleepers. I don?t know if that is the case in Japan/ the sci-fi setting you?re depicting, but if it is, it would give you an ?out?!

You are correct that concrete is more and more prevalent these days, and I imagine will entirely replace wood any day now. There are some added considerations here, I originally started these tracks to use with 6mm dieselpunk (see the infantry in the first picture) and as mentioned also want to keep it viable for our 6mm conversion of memoir 44, both settings where concrete sleepers dont make sense. Realistically featureless sleepers would look just fine either way, but I did end up sculpting wood texture on these files and am happy with the results, so I'm loath to remove it, and wooden sleepers in a near future setting feels much less glaring than concrete in a historical one to me...

Given the amount of oil and dirt down the middle of most railway tracks, are the sleepers a different colour from the ballast?

I feel the ballast outside the tracks might be a different colour to that inside the tracks (due to dirt) - feel I will pay more attention next time a catch a train.

This is a great point! I was mulling it over yesterday and finally had time to look at random examples in rural Japan and a more busy track here in the Netherlands, and yeah you are correct!




Now I'm not certain if that's rust from the tracks or crud from the trains or a combination, but yeah those sleepers are barely a different tint then the ballast around it. If I had an airbrush at hand I'd just run a row down the tracks extending a bit on both sides and be done, but even without I figure a soft brush will serve just as well. I already found that painting the sleepers and track in the same dark brown looks fine, and a silver paint maker works great for the polished top surface so that would streamline the painting fantastically. I am going to to do a quick test on a short section of track to see if it looks right by itself, with this stuff the mental expectation of a model, the verisimilitude, does not always match reality I find but I'm hopeful! Thanks for the suggestion fred!

Highly detailed small scale scenery is always great, really enjoying this build and glad to see it resurface.

Looking forward to whatever you do with the railway bridge vs hex layout issue, too.

Thanks! I'm always thinking about this whole bundle of scenery, just don't get round to making for it as much as I'd want for all sorts of reasons.

I have a couple of solutions to my bridge challenge, I think it especially helps if I'm willing to deviate from the grid "internally" as long as the end caps match up at the right distance and angle the track between can do whatever. For example I'm currently sketching a couple of curves that only deflect one hex side (60 degrees) but spread the curve over 2 or 3 hexes. This creates curves which look much more realistic and pleasingly sweeping to me. It also helps "hide" the grid nature which can look a bit artificial and gamey at times. And a big plus on the 3 hex long one you can also see it creates a great spot for a perpendicularly crossing bridge as well.

[YPU]

Couple of minutes of slapdash testing later, and I think I actually prefer this result for the paint!

top 2 old test pieces with the sleepers painted individually, bottom dual track new test with "Fred's brown smear" method. 



There are more steps, but all broad strokes that I can literally run up and down the tracks without careful precision, on this 5cm test piece it was a bit fidbly but I'm sure it will scale up great with the 12 and 24cm sections!

For those playing along at home, this is a light grey primer, vallejo german black brown down the tracks and surrounding area, a dark wash/ink over the whole thing. (used nuln oil, but I think a dark brown would tie it all together better) vallejo wolf grey drybrush on the middle and edge ballast and a beastly brown drybrush over the sleeper area. And a silver paint marker for the tops.

[Pattus Magnus]

That works! I am glad to hear that the washes and drybrush worked smoothly- precision painting would have been painful.

I was thinking about a point you made earlier about the raised rail beds and making them wide enough for a figure base to stand on easily. I like that a lot. In WW2 during the campaigns to liberate the Netherlands the raised road and rail lines were very important after the areas flooded. They were nearly the only hard ground available and seriously channeled vehicle and troop movements. Pretty hard on the Allied troops trying to advance (which was why the Germans flooded the areas in the first place, of course). Your rail lines could totally allow that sort of scenario.

[fred]

"Fred's brown smear"

 

Looks good - my method picks out the wood texture nicely!

[YPU]

That works! I am glad to hear that the washes and drybrush worked smoothly- precision painting would have been painful.

I was thinking about a point you made earlier about the raised rail beds and making them wide enough for a figure base to stand on easily. I like that a lot. In WW2 during the campaigns to liberate the Netherlands the raised road and rail lines were very important after the areas flooded. They were nearly the only hard ground available and seriously channeled vehicle and troop movements. Pretty hard on the Allied troops trying to advance (which was why the Germans flooded the areas in the first place, of course). Your rail lines could totally allow that sort of scenario.

Yes this is exactly what I was thinking off, I grew up right next to one of those railroads 

Looks good - my method picks out the wood texture nicely!

yes! I hadn't expected it to pop so well but it actually makes the sleepers stand out plenty, arguably more than on some of my old tests!

[YPU]

I stuck some greenery on this test section and calling it done now. Very successful test, now to do a batch of the buggers big enough to make this system usable. I've started printing 12cm straight sections and a big 60 degree curve (one hex side) smeared out over 3 hexes of space. Very pleasing curvature there. 




Of course, now I need to start thinking trains as well... And thats a whole nother can of worms.

[Pattus Magnus]

The painted piece looks great! I think the curve works too. It has a long enough arc to look plausible. Trains do not turn sharply, especially if they are moving at speed! I am looking forward to seeing a stretch of your tracks completed and in place with buildings and terrain. I think it will look spectacular!

[fred]

Looking good - really like the finished piece. And the big curve looks right.

[YPU]

Thanks chaps!

Trains do not turn sharply, especially if they are moving at speed!

Yes this variable curve thingy is something I need to wrap my head around, the angles in the shunting yard can be a lot tighter than the bends on the high speed section!


For today's efforts, a single unit diesel model is starting to take shape. This will also serve as a testbed for articulated bogies and magnetized coupler designs.

[YPU]

With the train still in the digital realms, I'm also sliding around buildings on my urban bases to see what would look right.

Playing with the idea of using a large office or administrative block at a 45 degree angle on this one, to break the grid a bit.





And from there, wanted to test that in a layout to make sure it doesn't feel too out of place among the other finished and WIP modules.




Which made me realize that if I finish all of these, I might have enough of these for now? Add in some more specialized modules like a highschool (big things those, too big for one of these modules!) and a raised highway or railroad with slums or buildings underneath and this will do a full on city. In the abstracted ground scale of most games at least, anyway. At that point its already closing in on being a complete urban board for the games that use a smaller 1x1m board.

[Peithetairos]

That is an outstanding gaming setup. Great attention to detail.