Having settled in in our new room in the new premises, we had put down the rest of the sidewalks. Next was the roadway. This was made with a material we know in the UK as ‘Artex filler’. Artex was used back in the 1970s for creating swirling patterns on ceilings and walls but has now fallen out of fashion. It is a soft, flexible plaster with ‘higlights’ in which can be rewetted at any time and lightly reworked. In this case it was mixed with black acrylic to get various shades of grey.

Although the surface was rough when first laid after a few days of drying (our room is rather damp). the surface can be rubbed with fingers to give a smooth surface, and additional layers can be painted on and reworked in a few hours. As the material hardened, drain covers and kerb grills were pushed into it (for later painting).

Meanwhile, Paul and Chris started to get the front panels and lighting supports ready. Unfortunately, because of time constraints, we had to use a central support at the front which broke the panorama. The first picture below shows the addition of an unpainted backscene and the second shows the layout with only the layout lighting on.

Steve Painted the back panels assuming an angle of view that proved to be inconsistent with other perspectives but, hey, it worked on the day! These panels were only temporary for the exhibition, so he can have another go.

The park was ‘turfed’ with static grass using our Noch GrasMaster and four trees were added using the previously described techniques. Finally we started to dismantle the layout to take the boards to the show!

See out Exhibition page for more views of our incomplete, but now exhibitable, layout.