News from your model shop - 15th of March 2020

Hello

Don't forget to read our latest modelling tips located at the bottom to the bottom of the newsletter.

As far as we know, the London Festival of Railway Modelling at Alexandra Palace taking place next weekend (21st-22nd March) is still happening. If you are popping along to the event, have a great day and bring us back something nice!

Lichen has been used by modellers for decades to recreate shrubs or hedges on their layouts. It is a natural living organism that can grow in some of the harshest environments on Earth. Modellers have liked lichen because it takes the form of a miniature tree or bush complete with stalks and foliage, it's easy to shape and comes in many different shades of green as well as some wonderfully vibrant autumn colours.

In more recent times lichen has fallen out of favour a little bit with modellers because more realistic materials have appeared on the shelves. However, lichen is far from being without a purpose, you just have to know what to do with it.

Part of the problem is that we still use it in the same way that it has been used for years, and to be honest, a sea of bright almost luminous green, well, doesn't look great. Used correctly though, lichen can really bring your scenery to life.

The key here is to approach lichen in the same way we do with other modelling materials and use lots of different colours layers and textures. This is where lichen really comes into its own. Once it is mixed in amongst flatter more dense materials, the change in texture makes your hedges, bushes and wasteland look amazing, it can also be squeezed into the cracks and crevices on your rock faces and embankments to hide a multitude of sins (not that we're suggesting you have any) but they do really bring a cliff face to life.

Because lichen is natural, it introduces colours to the scenery that we wouldn't otherwise have considered. They can be a little bright though when they are scaled up, so here is our top tip: to tone down the lichen but keep the diversity of colour, mist them with a light layer of scenic cement and dust lightly and randomly with a coarse turf. Another way to do it is to very lightly dust the lichen with a grey primer aerosol. This does need to be done sparingly though or you could end up with some excellent looking grey bushes!

Please note that even if it is a natural product, it is safe to use as it is treated to stop growth and kill all bacteries.

 

Expo have a range of very large bags of lichen. They come in various shades of green and each bag contains 250g. This is twice as big as large bags from other manufacturers. So if you have a reasonably large layout, you should consider these family packs:

 

There are some amazing autumn colours, we especially like the autumn mix by Woodland Scenics because there are so many different colours and shades in the pack. If you want to have a go at colouring your own liken there is even a plain version.

Another top tip is to not be afraid to break the lichen up, always remember the scale you are working in and use little bits of lichen so you do not overpower the scene.

When you are using lichen to model ground foliage we find it is better to remove the stalks, however, liken makes excellent tree canopies with the stalks left in place.

For those of you that prefer runways to railways as we look up up and away into the skies of the 1940s.

A very popular WWII aircraft to model is the Seafire. This was the naval version of the Spitfire and there are several variations of this beautiful plane out there to model.

Early Seafires had fixed wings and were used alongside hooked Spitfires for operations launched from aircraft carriers. These, however, were not practical as space aboard the carriers was limited and eventually, a folding wing version was produced creating the iconic Seafire that we all recognise.

So if you have got the grandchildren this coming Easter and you're looking for an interesting project that grown-ups can enjoy too then this could be for you. Here are a few of them in 1/48 scale.

 

If 1/48 is too large for you, they are also available in 1/72 scale, including a commemorative set with 5 different marks in the box: