I made the mistake of looking a some dioramas on the internet. Steve Pettit's town of Chamatiago and Laurie Greene's, Grizzly Flats, wow! I love the way the buildings run up a hill in a swooping curve. So impressed was I that I went about replaning half of my layout to try and fit them in. After a week or so it dawned on me that I could get some of that effect by putting a little extra time and work into the layout the way it is right now.
Waldo became my focus as it was just some buildings sitting on a flat surface. As it happened the backdrop already had the contours I wanted.
The old road in front of the barn runs up a hill, then down and back up a larger hill, which slopes off to the right.
After some more contouring, plaster and rock castings were added. With some Touch up paint and other scenic material applied, this should look like a hilly country road.
There is a flat area next, where the station is. After that is the town consisting of 4 buildings. Again the old backdrop showed me what to do.
The first building, a boarding house will be on stilts where the hill drops off to the left. Then up again to the highest level of the hill where a Grocery sits and then down a bit to a shoe store. The hill drops off sharply as the road shirts an out crop of rock and runs down to a warehouse.
The area was plastered and had a rock face applied along the front of the entire hill. I'm hoping to be able to paint the backdrop to look like the road goes down behind the station, up over the new hill and drops back down into the backdrop between the rock outcrop and the wharehouse.
