Hochwald = high forest

Creative Chaos

Following the plan, this weekend it was time to make Hochwald an actual forest.

I don't really have the space on my hills to model an actual forest (puffballs are popular for doing deciduous forests, yet the Black Forest has mostly conifer trees). The Woodland Scenics "conifer trees" pack is not really producing convincing conifers tress either ...

Nevertheless, creative chaos reigns on the Welztalbahn.

Hochwald

After some initial experimentation, I painted the forest floor a dark, almost black, brown, glued down fine foam for grass, and started planting trees. Over the next couple hours Hochwald looked more like the suggested forest edge I had in mind. Though, it wasn't quite right.

Comparing to photos I took in the Black Forest, I realized what I was missing: The tree line at the edge of the forest is much more dense and darker, than what I produced today. Nevertheless, given that I never made something like this before, I'm quite happy with how this all came out.

I think the depression in the tree line where the access road to Steinle Hof exits the forest and crosses a bridge looks much better than I thought I could manage. Now it's a question of finding and fitting the right kind of bridge to cross the track.

Hochwaldtunnel

Since I was already working in the general area I painted the rocks around Hochwaldtunnel. The tree bark pieces are still a little bit visible in this photo, though it's not nearly as noticable on the actual layout from most viewing angles. Blending in the gaps filled with Scuptamold worked better than I expected.

Finally, a photo covering most of today's work.