Let It Snow.....

[Masioka]

Has anyone any tips and advice for modelling realistic snow. It will be in 'N' but it won't be littered with clichés (well maybe the odd snowball fight).

 

I'm looking for fairy deep snow on the tracks and a fair covering elsewhere. Alpine-esque. Slush, banks of cleared snow. Realistic weathering to simulate that grey grime left on vehicles and trains.

 

Anyway, you get my drift - no pun intended. ;)

 

Cheers,

[CaptOblivious]

I've never done snow myself, but (if you don't mind translating from wargames to model railroads) there's an interesting comparison of three different snow modeling techniques at Brushthralls.

[Guest ___]

I tried snow once. It didn't work too well.

[Masioka]

Didn't look good, or just didn't work?

[Welshbloke]

I've seen a couple of problems with modelling snow - firstly, your stock will be dedicated to the layout, as you'll have to add snow weathering. It can be tricky to keep it out of mechanisms. It can also go yellowed with age and tends to show dust.

 

It does look great when done well, but the weathering part would lead me to use something like a cheap two car EMU/DMU and a smallish operational diorama type of layout to keep the costs down.

[Guest ___]

Didn't look good, or just didn't work?

 

I made such a terrible mess and it just never looked right.

[Masioka]

OK, I'm starting to think this may not be the best move. ;)

 

Back to the drawing board .......

[CaptOblivious]

Masioka, if you were looking for a Sept. Party Project, a series of snow modeling experiments would be perfect! Try out 3 or 4 techniques for yourself on something disposable, and you'd have made an invaluable contribution to the board and your own rather interesting long-term project.

[Masioka]

Aaargh! I thought someone was going to suggest that. I'll see what I can do. ;)

[kashirigi]

For what it's worth, a friend of mine swears by powdered marble as his snow of choice. It won't yellow, is somewhat sparkly like real snow and can be applied like flock. I think he got it at a local stonecutter (available by the sack, probably), but I have no doubt it can be purchased on the internet like any other commodity.

 

Like the others suggested, I'd make a small diorama to see whether the snow modelling is worth the effort.

[Guest ___]

Aaargh! I thought someone was going to suggest that. I'll see what I can do. ;)

 

I didn't put a super amount of time into it so don't let my comment be discouraging. Hell, you might be able to teach me something  ;)

[Bernard]

Masioka,

Snow--wow I have enough problems with just regular ground cover. I guess I would start with painting all your ground cover white and then add whatever material you want to use as snow over it. Has anyone tried Woodlandscenic snow? Personally I wasn't wild about their ballast, it's very light and tends to float when I added diluted glue. Best of luck and keep us posted!