Screamin' right along...
Thank you all for the kind comments. It's nice when somebody takes a second to leave a thought.
In the area in the following pictures, I wanted to add an old mining road from down below up to the mine. Since half of this area was more or less already plastered, that meant cutting some out and reshaping. Up above, I actually added in a switchback that crawled along the edge of the rocks. As a kid, my dad and I used to go out motorcycle riding down some of these old steep rutted mining roads and that was kind of the effect I was trying to capture. Well, have a look...
Here you see a before shot of the lower portion of the runoff creek from the mine.
This picture is of the upper area where the switchback will be added for the mining road.
And, an overall shot of the area before the mining road.
This picture is of the work in progress. The road has taken shape, the plaster is wet and the rock castings are still white and unpainted. Yes, I decided to add some real rocks - decomposed granite. They kind of stick out right now, but I will dumb them down so they will blend in later.
Sorry, this is probably overkill but here is another in progress shot from another angle.
Tah dah! We have an overall of the new mining road complete with its first timid driver! Actually, it's not complete... I plan on covering the brown paint with some really fine brown sifted dirt. That way, I can add some ruts and erosion.
And another slightly closer. Man, that camera really pops out the places that still need paint! I know the trees are a little bright. I plan on dumbing them down as well.
Here is the upper portion of the mining road from a slightly different direction. When I get the trackwork completed, the crossing will look a lot different as I will fill in between the rails with plaster and dirt.
And an overall showing both the upper section and the lower section.