Corral at Cave Junction

Started putting the town of Cave Junction back together. The first area was the Corral. All the fences were reinstalled after reworking them a bit. Now cattle can be driven across the tracks from the ranch or through town. Trees fill in gaps in the fences and add vertical  structure to the scenery.

Corral back in operation 

Long horns arriving at the Corral. 

Backdrop painting

After the revisions there were a few areas where rock castings were removed. Now that new castings have been added at a lower level the wall had to be repainted.

I had roughly covered in the area were the rock castings were removed. 

Highlighted were a stream would go with a little white paint.

A panoramic view of the area to be repainted. 

First area completed.

Second area finished. Now the streams through the scenery can be worked on.

Gravel truck arrived at Waldo

Gravel (ground clay) applied to the roads to Waldo.

The rock castings also got the first coat of paint. Nice thing is I don't have to touch up too much of the background, just paint in the road were it goes into it, and maybe some taller, foreground trees.

The stilts were added to the Boarding House. It still needs a set of stairs up to the beck. The General Store now sits on log cribbing under it's left side.

Waldo

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. 

All roads lead to Grants Pass

Having a large piece of thin styrene I cut it up to form the base for all the paved roads in Grants Pass.

Painted the roads a medium grey. Still need to stain the crossings and the shoulders need grass and dirt. May add white lines also but need to get a paint pen for that.

Good Smoked Hams

After building some hills around Grants Pass there was a nice spot to put a house with a laneway going up a small hill. Thanks to Gary I had a ham smoking scene that would really finish this scene off. Some fire wood, stumps, and trees will fill up the rest of the space.

Test fitting the structures. Don't know if the smoke shack should be in front or behind the house.

Behind the house makes more sense.

Some scenery has been added and the rock work has been painted. Mr. Good should have a good location to sell his hams as the gentle breezes carry the aroma down over the village.

Hill's at the entrance to Grants Pass.

There are too many unrealistic flat areas at the west end of Grants Pass, even putting a small house down didn't look right. Besides camouflaging the big curve on the N.P. mainline, a few hills with rocky outcrops suggest a logical reason for the layout of the tracks into Grants Pass.

 Oh, look what I came up with, the curve of the road leads the viewer's eyes throught the scene, back to the point of interest, the town. Almost like I planned it.

When the plaster dries I may dig out some valleys.