Sippin' Swamp Diorama - Part 7 - Where the Black Water Rolls

 After clear coating, we're ready to put on a base coat of black.  This will give us a starting point for the swamp water later.

 The shiny surface will keep anything from penetrating the wood, mainly glue and paint.  But we want to give the swamp water a black starter coating for its mirror finish.  Other modelers keep using muddy looking water but any swamp I have seen the water is clear and tea colored up close and mirror black at a distance.  Again, START WITH THE PROTOTYPE.

 Hey, let's use that new can of Testor's Flat Black!  We'll go out to the garage to paint this.

 There!  Didn't take too long, but it does dry slow.  I painted the edges, too, but not the bottom.

 Next we need to decide where the track is going to go.  Really, we need to decide where the pilings are going to go.  Using a piece of Micro Engineering On30 track, I flexed it again to the pattern that we drew earlier.

 We will use a can of Floquil Roof Brown (just because it was handy) and the track will become a stencil for the pilings.

I put down newsprint and marked the edges of the track with the stencil.  Then I put the wood base on the stencil and realigned the track on top of it.  Using a light touch I spray painted the track, leaving a stencil marking of it to use for the alignment of the pilings.

Next...we need pilings!