Thanks for the compliments, guys.
...the way you have done the road and creek/river; they look very natural and realistic.....which is not easy to do.
Can you explain/describe how you did the creek?
Marc
Marc, the first step was probably the easiest
... I just used a retractable blade "box cutter" to generally cut and shape the foam for the creek bank. After that, it was a matter of layering various materials, including sifted rocks and small pebbles from the Ozarks as well as blended tile grout and powdered cat litter, until it started looking like the small, shallow streams that I see all the time in the Ozarks. To get the appearance of shoreline erosion along the water's edge, I built up and layered the same materials, tapering them out into the water. The sand/gravel bars were built up the same way. To hold it all in place, I used dilute matte medium, which the cat litter/tile grout blend readily soaked up, and then I used my fingers to push the gravel and small bits of rock down into the wet "dirt." It took several evenings to build it all up and shape it the way I wanted. Then I began lining the shoreline and what would be the shallows with twigs and other debris.
To color the creek bed, I just feathered in a few colors - mostly raw umber, raw sienna, and Polly Earth. The water was made up of 2 coats of Mod Podge, which I glopped on and swirrled around to create the look of moving water. After it had all dried, I top-coated the water by brushing on a thin layer of Future. And that was pretty much it. I think all together I spent 4 or 5 weeknights working on it.
This photo and the ones following are some construction shots I took along the way. The buildings were temporarily set in place for the photos.
