If you look at the earlier photo of the man standing in front of the door, notice the wall to the right of the man.

You can see the dark shadow under the bottom edge of the planks and also the faint white drybrushed onto the edge of the green boards.

Final thoughts about the walls.

I usually use a soft brush to apply a black stain onto the walls.  This stain is black ink mixed in alcohol.  No formula.  I just add black ink until it looks right to me.

When I apply this stain, I lay the wall flat and then lift the bottom edge a little so that the stain gathers in the "shadow" between overlapping boards.  I don't brush the stain on, I let gravity draw it down onto the flat wall.

I try to simulate the shadow shown in this photo of clapboard siding.

This shadow is readily seen in clapboard siding in the direct sunlight.

When I build board by board in O scale, I paint the bottom of each board black to try to show this shadow.

Hard to do in HO.

After the black ink and alcohol stain is dry, I very lightly drybrush the painted siding using downward vertical strokes so that I just highlight the very edge of the boards.  If I can see the drybrushing, it means I added too much.  I try for just a hint of highlights on the edge of the boards.  I use the off white that I use in the trimwork on the structure.

Hard to see the door with the guy standing in front of it.  Sorry.

For the door I painted the door a very dark grey and let dry.

I then applied my mix of green and white to the door.

I let it dry for about two minutes and then put some blue painter's tape onto the door and firmly pressed down on it.

I then removed the blue tape which took most of the green off the door sides but left the green mix in the the small panels.

This helps it look like I spent a lot of time carefully painting the door.  But I didn't.  Quick and easy tip.

By brushing over the sign and walls with an emery board, it allows the undercoat (white paper) to show through which makes the individual board look to show through.  On the green part of the walls, (hard to see) this allows the burnt umber to show through a little as well.

When this is done, I use the foam method to apply a little light earth color at the bottom of the wall.

As for the green color itself, I used Ceramcoat Leaf Green and Apple Barrel Antique Parchment.

As the the doors, windows and trim, I painted them all first with the burnt number and when dry, applied the Antique Parchment with the sponge.  I applied the off white lightly to allow plenty of contrast to the green.

Jim,

Both the wood building on the right and the plastic building on the left look the same as I use the same methods on each.

I "paint" the walls first with acyrlic Burnt Umber.  I paint the walls with horizonal brushing.  But I vary the amount of paint on each pass so that the wall is not uniform in color.

After this had dried completely, I put a small puddle of off white and a second small puddle of my primary wall color.  In this case a green color.  These are also acrylic paints as are all the paints I use these days.

I have a large chunk of foam rubber such as is used in chairs for padding.  I tear off a chunk of this foam and use it to apply the paint in dabbing motions.

Using the foam rubber, I pick up a dab of the green and then a dab of the off white.

I then pound the mix into a piece of wood until I have just enough paint of the foam rubber to be able to apply the paint in a "dry brush" fashion.  But I don't move the foam sideways in a painting motion.  I dab the paint onto the surface of the wall in a vertical motion.

This method is commonly used by Fos Scale Models and Jason Jensen Trains on Youtube.

When I "reload' my foam, I reach into my first puddle of green and lightly pound the foam into the mixed colors started off with.  This give me a greener color this time.

I then use this greener color to apply more paint in the dabbing motion.

When this needs reloading, I add some off white to my mix of colors and repeat.

When I do this I am adding very small amounts of paint each time and each time the color is different.

I don't try to cover the walls completely but want some of the burnt umber undercoat to show through.

I then let this dry completely.

I then go back to my burnt umber and apply the tiniest amount of paint in this vertical dabbing motion.  Just enough paint to make it look like some of the green has worn off.

When dry, I apply my paper signs with Elmer's white glue and let them dry completely.

I then add a very small amount of the green mix over the sign so that it looks like some of the sign color has peeled off.

I then let this dry completely.

I then take an emery board and very, very lightly pass the emery board over the sign and the whole wall.

I pulled an old plastic kit off the shelf to build as a second building attached to another building with an overhead passageway.  The plastic kit was the Rooming House in Ho by Model Power.  The same kit has been offered by many different companies over the years.

Great looking diorama.

Thanks for sharing your photos with us.

I then spread a small puddle of white glue onto a piece of scrap plastic.

I then "dabbed" (up and down) the piece I had made earlier into the puddle of white glue and placed it onto the 6 longer strips and let dry.

I then cut and glued the upright "posts" in place and added some small angled pieces of 2 by 6 on the sides.

The loading dock is now finished.

Thanks Jerry.  The only real secret is to make sure all the jigs line up correctly.

In this photo you can see that I put 6 pieces of 2 by 10s into the larger jig, again making sure they are aligned on the edges.

Thanks, Jaime, I have always built jigs for any kind of repetitive work.

The next thing is the second jig.

It is 6 inches by 4.25 inches and is basically built the same way.

The next step was to simply glue the long strips of decking material, 2 by 10s, onto the uprights.

Cut your uprights and place them into the jig, one at a time.

Once you have the desired length, simply glue on 2 by 10 planks onto the top of the uprights.

This is a photo of how the jig looks at this point.

I also realized that a block on the left hand end would be good to allow the second jig to be accurately placed.

This block is just some 1/8th square basswood.  Two small pieces and a longer third one on the top of the two smaller pieces.

This photo shows the jigs glue to a piece of taskboard that is 1 inch wide

I have glued a second piece of taskboard to the back so that it acts as a block.

This keeps all the upright pieces in a line so that the finished product can be placed against a structure.



A few pieces of upright planks are in place so that you can see how it looks when using the jig.