Jupiter Pump & Compressor, Part 6

 This series of posts is essentially about placing an additional structure at Jupiter Pump & Compressor, the only industry on my layout that’s imagined to be fairly large, and is thus mostly has to be modeled on the backdrop. In the preceding post in the series, I had put in place a concrete walkway around the structure, an AL&W kit for an SP power house (see that post at: https://modelingthesp.blogspot.com/2020/04/jupiter-pump-compressor-part-5.html ). 

As I showed in that previous post. the ground contours around the structure were blended up to the walkway edges using paper mache. Once that was fully dry, I painted it with a mixture of my usual ground color, Rust-Oleum “Nutmeg,” lightened with a little bit of Rust-Oleum “Almond” to soften it somewhat. While the paint was still wet, I sprinkled on some Woodland Scenics “green grass” to make a start on the scenery.

With that in place, I decided on a minimal sign for the building. As with many industrial multi-building plants, individual buildings may be numbered, and I chose a number to apply to this one. I also thought that I should add the company name, since this building is closest to nearby Bromela Road and thus would be seen by motorists (nowadays, of course, many industrial buildings show scarcely any signage, but in the transition era, the situation was much different). The logo here is just a black-and-white version of the color one on the main building signboard (see photo above).

I also proceeded with adding some vegetation to the area around the building. In this area of the layout, I am using somewhat olive-toned and dark green foliage mixtures, rather than any bright greens. Other layout areas, imagined to be farther inland, show classic California “golden grass,” but as this area is not far from the seashore, vegetation is different. 

The Woodland Scenics products I am using in this area are Dark Green foliage, a wonderful material I use a lot for small shrubs; Burnt Grass extra coarse turf, again representing small plants; and Light Green coarse turf, mixed with a little Green Grass fine turf, for grass-like plants. I normally dab some irregular areas with matte medium, and apply various combinations of the above materials to the dabs. This provides enough adhesion to hold them in place.

In the scene above, the man with the wheelbarrow is an ancient Campbell figure. You can just see the plant switcher between the buildings. 

This completes the scenic work right next to the new building. The surrounding area continues to need further vegetation and refinement, but that’s a topic for a future post.

Tony Thompson