Builders in Scale "The Waterfront"

[Opa George]

The seawalls are hydrocal castings. I began with an A&I wash to give them a nice gray base, then rather haphazardly colored individual stones with good quality artists acrylics in paynes gray, burnt umber, raw umber, burnt sienna and a little titanium white. Before that color could set, I used a sponge brush to give them a heavy wash, working in vertical strokes. This both blended them together and washed out the strong tint. Again, before drying, I wiped with a rag to remove most of the moisture, then dusted them with chalk dust (black, gray and brown), and then one more final wipe with a rag, again working vertically.  below are the walls, still slightly damp. The top two appear slightly darker in the photo, but in person they are all closer to the bottom wall in appearance.

When completely dry, I will dry brush with white to bring out the highlights and suggest sunlight.

Moving along to siting the structures--I don't plan to keep them together in the same arrangement as the kit suggests, but to intermingle with other structures. The cannery will sit at the very end of the spur next to the boat repair building from the Builders in Scale Tidewater Wharf.  Here is the cannery with the concrete wall attached, which extends down to water level. The seawalls, pilings and other constructs will hide the wooden base.


This little corner, with the boat repair and the cannery, is Ragged Edge, a small inlet clinging by the skin of its teeth to the side of the mountain. Depending upon how my landforms turn out, I will be siting the boarding house higher on the side of the mountain, reachable by a rickety stairway, and other structures as can make them fit logically.

Below I am test fitting the base for the water. Looks like I need to add a little more length, maybe 1/8 inch, to the bottom of the concrete wall so it matches the level in front of the boar repair dock.  I can use stripwood and paint to match the concrete.


I know it looks kind of raggedy now, but once I add seawalls, docks, pilings and a fascia, it should shape up pretty well. 

[PRR Modeler]

Really nice modeling George.

[EricQuebec]

Nice looking stone wall George
Eric

[Lynnb]

George nice work on the build, I hope the business is making a killing for the advertising on the big wall.

[GPdemayo]

Looks great George.....

[ReadingBob]

This is really coming together nicely.  Great job on those stone walls!   

[Opa George]

Thank you, Curt and Gregory, and also for the comments on the seawalls, Eric and Bob. Lynn--the boarding house traffic has been light, so the owners do appreciate the few extra bucks the sign business brings in.

The water base is painted. I think I may be somewhat of an "impressionist" in my rendering.   Ah, well, it will look ok with a dozen coates of Mod Podge.


Here is the cannery just sitting in place. Dock yet to be constructed.


Another view showing more of the timbered walls outside of the boat repair dock.