Landscapes for Model Train Layouts

"On behalf of Expert Village my name is Bob Lanning. I'm here to tell you about making a train diorama in HO scale. Now, to represent all these hills and other various geological features we're relied on historical photos from the Mining Museum and The Douglas Mansion which is the state park up in Jerome. And, they we're done by building wooden forms, specially the big hill in Jerome, wooden forms and a lot of that pink foam and then which was then covered by plaster, cloth, and carved and covered with all the various scenery materials That had to have a lift out of the top so we could work in there, and there are various lift outs throughout the layout to get at things for access. But, they are fairly well camouflaged, you can't tell where they're at. Now, to get all the various shrubs and trees you see, those are, some are commercially available, sometimes you can make trees out of various twigs or nandina bushes, various kind of shrubbery that you find, that you put these little pieces of foam, shredded foam and they make material that can be stretched and you usually can spray it with either hair spray and drop other little pieces of grass to make the trees realistic. When the paint is wet, on the base material of the hills, you drop the grasses into the wet paint and then soak the mold or you can use dry wall compound and lay it on and carve in these little cliffs you see, there's many ways of doing this and just use your imagination and it's hard to make it look wrong."