Stabliofarmer

Interesting, I thought I'd got them running the wrong way as without some alteration mid way they'd have been near enough horizontal. What dictates how you position them?

Cheers guys, the stone works actually quite therapeutic in small doses, I was ready to never see another wall when finishing the barn! Now you're asking difficult questions John. Diorama should be finished, whether any models to put on it will be is another question altogether

Some interesting bits of stone wall completed recently. The first is on first glance a simple straight wall the same as makes up the collecting yard. However in order to make things look more natural nothing is running straight and true, ie the barn is positioned at a different angle to the collecting yard as things are built around the land, not in a square patter . This means the walls run at a different angle to the baseboard so this wall, which runs off the baseboard, has too come to a fine point rather than stopping dead. This meant angling the foam board and cutting the coping stones into thinner and thinner slithers. The second required abit more head scratching as this one follows the contours of a hilly field. In the end i decided to cut the wall as a single piece thats base followed the land, and after that the process was identical to any other wall. In order to get the right shape I hacked away at a cardboard template then transfered it to the wall. And with that all the stone work for these two bases is complete and I can move on to adding plenty of greenery!

Cheers, yes felt like I'll have to add a dumper as I'm currently on placement at Mecalac, which was Terex, which was Benford, so I see site dumpers being built every day.

For leaves I'm going to use a few blends of clump foliage, which I'm having a go at making at the moment based on this guide The wire is 0.6mm 14" florist wire. The trees built in a slightly different method to the normal wire ones, with such a wide trunk it wouldn't be possible to twist it. I'm following this guide with some alterations. Will have a full step by step when I've finished. The thinner the wire the more smaller branches you will have, but also the longer it will take to make.

Quick test with some coco fibre chucked on and i think it could just work.

Either that or use some coco fibre which I purchased to try and make bales from. Clump it on the branch ends then add scatter, like you would with seafoam, but cheaper/ with materials I have already

I'm going to have a go at making some of these, I don't think i could get seafoam to blend into the branches how id like, where as this would drape over and allow for a dense canopy to be built up in layers

Well, thats not as easy as the YouTube tutorials make it look. First go at a wire tree. Limited myself slightly by using DAS clay to coat the trunk but at a foot high and near enough a foot across something like Miliput would have cost a fortune to use, but would adhere to the wire better.

Cheers guys, yes very time consuming! Will certainly be able to see it at Penrith John I get what you mean Sean, but not quite the approach I want to take. The top of the roof line is quite messy after a failed attempt to make a sagged roof by cutting curves in the card. So I want to use the ridge tiles to hide all of that when both roof panels are off.

That looks alot better, far more British, going to have to get one myself

Roofing The barn is roofed in Yorkshire Falgstone Slates which I needed to replicate in miniature. This was done using mountboard. First it was cut into rectangles of decreasing sizes as the slates get smaller the further up the roof they get. Then the edges where trimmed to round them off. Slates aren't a continuous thickness so some more work was needed to get the right look. Using a craft knife I peeled the edges, weathing them and adding in the appearance of layers like real slates. With the slates now ready they can be layed just like the real thing. For the barn I want the roof to be removable so a border is fitted around the roof lines (painted black) with a lip underneath that the main roof sheet (white in the photo), again made of mountboard sits ontop of. Slates are then glued to the main sheet, overlapping the border. This is built up along the whole roof. When reaching the top it was necessary to put a shim of cereal card inplace to glue the top layer of slates too, as otherwise they would be glued to the border and the roof wouldn't be removable. Paint is next. A liberal coat of Reeves Naples Yellow Acrylic was added, and to get the gritty texture of sandstone tile grout was sprinkled on and blended in while wet. The paint now needs weathering, to do this I apply two washes of black acrylic, watered down by about 50% and really scrubbed on with a paintbrush so that only a thin layer is applied. Making sure that all the cracks and crevices are highlighted by the black. The finished product is light and to a level of realism I'm happy with. The next challenge is how to do the ridge stones in a way that they are fixed to the roof line, while blending in with the two removable panels. DAS clay seems the best option at the moment.

With focusing most of my time on my diorama my two October challenges got set aside slightly and neither will be done on time. The livestock trailer is no further along but the Unimog is close. Some more detailing to do, the blower unit needs painting yellow I've realised, and then weathering and she'll be done.

Thanks for the feedback, much appreciated. Think it'll be a full rework for the texel, and move onto a Lonk ewe and shearlings

I'm still chipping away at learning to sculpt, latest bits are two sheep from scratch rather than based on a Britain's, a Lonk Ram, and a texel ewe. Quite pleased with the lonk other than the head being a little too wide. The texel on the other hand has far too large a head, and is too big scale wise overall, though I think I've got the basic shape correct. Would love some honest opinions.

Made a good bit of progress overall but more on that when sections are complete and I can write a guide on them. For now some work on the workshop at the top of the stairs.

Thats sitting very nice, looks great

Starting to tinker with diorama bits, starting with a Sheep Quad trailer Also having a go at sculpting, I've done bits with manipulating figures but I'd like to do some figures completely from scratch, so I've started with the heads, the hardest part, some interesting characters have been produced so far

Certainly something different Stan

Cheers guys. Colours wise most companies had factory colours, like modern tractors, but it was far from uncommon for the customer to specify a colour, more so on the road locos, ie todays equivalent of trucks, but wouldn't be unheard of on an agricultural such as the one above. The engines based on a Marshall, and the comon colours they came in were the marron and red it was originally, however being a freelance it's not a 100% accurate representation of a Marshall so theres no real issues with colours. The main aim here was to make it shine as we intend to sell it on!

Been working in this for the past few weeks, repaint on a 4" Freelance Traction Engine, quite pleased with the outcome, but alot more work than 1/32! Before After

Thanks timms Clutter added to the bottom floor, and doors and windows sorted, fronts foxed shut, rear is posable as open or shut as I have a few scenes planned that need it open. Just lighting to add then I can seal it all up. Rear doors are plasticard in its natural finish, front is cereal card with a light coat of brown acrylic.

Cheers guys Damn, wish I'd have know John, looks like it was only on for 52 weeks this year!!!

Ground floor interior going into the cottage, basic furniture and wall paper done, clutter and detail to go in next, then onto the first floor

As in the What's on your work bench topic I'm aiming to get the mog and another build finished by the 1st October. Applied the paint today just leaving the final details left to bring it to life.