Moving Forward with Nooksack

NMRA Scenery AP

I set a goal for myself of prepping the first phase (Nooksack and East Branch) for visitors aka "holding an open house" in April. As Nooksack is intended as a finished section of the 4th Subdivision I want it to meet some high standards. One set of guidelines for high standards would be the NMRA Achievement Program, in particular the Scenery AP which is made up of five categories: terrain, structures, background, lighting, and realism or conformity. The three that I will really be focusing on next here in the town of Nooksack are background, structures, and lighting. My intention is not to have phase one ready for evaluation, but to build a foundation ready to build upon. Earlier this month I posted about setting this goal as a motivational factor for myself. 

As I mentioned earlier, Nooksack is intended as a permanent part of my long range plan. The intended permanent backdrops have been in place with the sky painted for some time. After looking at some real estate photos online from Everson and Nooksack, I did a screen grab of a corner of one to use as a guide for painting a distant hill line. I mixed a color using my standard latex paints (primer white, my sky blue, and my earth brown) along with the addition of a little bit of a craft acrylic green. I am still debating whether it is a bit too dark; I may add some white to the saved batch and repaint.

I have also been exploring structure placement and future structure builds. Along with the possible buildings for the Nooksack packing house complex, I started fooling around with another screen grab, this one from one of the packing house sites from this earlier post. I have it printed out, resized, and flipped horizontally. I am considering either using the Paul Dolkos small photo with visual foils technique or a collage and mini theatre flat technique (or both?). In either case, I will need to deal with the issue of conflicting horizon lines created by using the photo which creates its own horizon line with its one-point perspective vanishing point. 

At the workbench, I started building a Fos Scale Model kit: the Juniper Freight House. I am not sure exactly where it will go, although originally I ordered it to be part of the cannery complex. On the one hand, it is a small and fairly simple build, but it is also giving me some practice with wood craftsman kit techniques that can also be applied to the scratchbuilt portions of the two industrial complexes in Nooksack. I am trying to do a little bit on the kit most days, while also working towards organizing the train room/basement. 

Lights on Ingleton

I want to actually finish the kit on my workbench rather than getting hung up on sonething and putting it aside so I don't mess it up. Classic fear of failure gumtion trap behavior! The one thing that I need to decide is how I will incorporate building lights in Nooksack. I used Woodland Scenics' Just-Plug over on the Ingleton plank, but they are quite expensive and not ideal in some ways. See my bail on interior lighting here. I definitely want to incorporate one system, not a mishmash. I am considering the system from Evan Designs that Doug Fos explored in this video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p17ODvYHKOM

  

It is relatively simple, not as expensive as the Just-Plug, and expandable. I'd better decide and if it is a go, place an order!