Nursery Wall Layout Update: More Progress

Since my last update on this project, I've actually gotten quite a bit accomplished. At that point all I had done was buy the components for the baseboard and back wall of the shelf. Now they are all finally assembled and I have started some of the detail work on the overall look of the layout. 

Its a little hard to tell in the picture, but one of the first things I did after assembling the pieces was paint the back wall a light blue. The plan here is to paint a few clouds and give it a nice looking sky background. I also bought some grass mat from the local hobby shop and have that cut to size along with some cork roadbed for the tracks. 

Assembled Shelf Unit with Blue Background and Some Scenery Work

The next step was getting started on the foam base for the mountain at either end of the layout. On the left side, we plan on having the church sit up on a hill so it will be visible above the train. That's why there is such a large base layer of foam on this side.

First Layer of Foam for the Mountain on the Left Side

It's been forever since I've done any kind of foam sculpting like this so I really had no idea what I was doing at first. The only thing I did know was that I would have to create stepped layers since the foam sheets I bought at Home Depot only came in 1" thickness. Once I got the hang of cutting this stuff with the hand saw I bought, it was pretty easy. I just used the previous layer to trace out and cut the next one up. The nice thing is they don't need to match perfectly.

All we have to do now is get them all glues together and start to sculpt them to look a bit more realistic. We were thinking about doing some paper mache to help blend the pieces together and give us a better base to paint. After that I plan on trying the poured grass method with the spray adhesive. I've never done that before, so we'll see how it turns out.

Additional Layers of Foam for the Mountain on the Left Side

I've got a few more layers to cut for this side and then I need to do the same for the other side of the layout, minus the large flat area. I have no need to create a large sloping hill on the right side since the station will sit pretty close to the tunnel portal and there would be no room to gradually blend it down to the grass mat.