The basic street configuration would be one street running side to side between the background flats and the backside of the foreground buildings. Another street would run between the foreground buildings and the track. The two streets would connect with a "cross street" at either end of the block. The material for the streets was cut from gray sheets of thin spongy craft foam and glued to the layout with full strength white glue.
 |
| Initial street layout. The street material still needs to be trimmed where the Kato Unitrack roadbed would be placed. I painted the area behind the rear street with dark gray paint to hide the brown surface in the gaps between the background buildings. The white shapes are the back sides of the background building flats, and the wood dowels that hold them up are scattered around. You might be able to see the dowel sleeves made out of drinking straws on the backs of the building flats. |
Cities aren't completely covered with pavement, so I wanted to add a little green space, maybe as a park or a vacant lot. The leftmost corner would be one such spot. To add a little visual variety, I made a curving street following the outside edge of the track in the right corner. I initially wanted to put a small building off that street in the right corner, but I ended up just covering the whole area with greenery.
After deciding on the sizes of the foreground buildings and marking off their footprints, I finished off the paved areas by adding a parking lot next to the building on the far left and adding alleys between the three buildings in the center. I then applied some Woodland Scenics ground foam and clump foliage to the open areas with diluted white glue to simulate grass and bushes. Finally, I added sidewalks along some of the streets by cutting strips from a thin white styrene (~ 0.010" thick) yard sale sign that I had in my hobby material stash. I glued these to the top of the gray foam streets using a thin layer of clear acrylic caulk.
 |
| Sidewalks and ground cover in place. The bright green areas on the other side were my initial attempt at rice paddies on the Mt. Fuji side. More on that in a later blog post. The small black shape on the other side is a section of a country road made from thin black craft foam. |
At this point, I realized I should have painted the stark white sidewalks strips before applying them to the layout. I just created more work for myself by needing to mask them off later for painting. However, at this point it was less than a week before showtime and I convinced myself that I needed to get them in place ASAP and move on to another task.
After the adhesive caulk had dried overnight, I masked the sidewalks and painted them with tan-colored craft paint. The paint went on very thin, almost like a wash. I intended to go back with a second coat later, but I liked the way it looked after the first thin coat, so I left it that way.
 |
| Sidewalks masked off and painted. Six more strips will be installed along the edge of the back street in front of the background building flats - those are at the bottom center taped to the cardboard. One of the foamcore foreground buildings is at the bottom left - more on those in a later blog post. Also, notice the bright green rice paddies on the back side have now changed to sky blue - more on that in a later blog post! 😁 |
