We had a blast

MSKK in Oostende Belgium

With our booth packed and loaded on Thursday evening, thanks to Dagmar my former employee to lend me a hand it was time to hit the road again on Friday the the 15th September 2023. With John arriving at 10 AM we packed our personal stuff and drove off at 10.30 for a as Google maps showed a 4 and a half hour drive to Oostende Belgium. All all, we had no major traffic jams on the way and arrived as scheduled at 14.56 at Duin en Zee the venue for this show.

They set us up with a nice place beside Train Service Danckaert who is also selling our stuff in Belgium, Luxemburg and France. At the show we decided to go for one demo desk and with the help of John Vogelaar and Alan Jockmand we spend the weekend showing the audience what you can do with our products.

The club MSKK provided a nice appartment style hotelroom with a stunning view over the North Sea. Pretty nice although we didn’t spend that much time in the room.

So I would like to thanks John and Alan for the great weekend. It’s a shame I didn’t post it earlier.

Just things.

It has been a while!

Well I know that should be an understatement since I didn’t post a simple blog entry since 2015. The reason for that? Well I had an awful lot of changes in my regular live. First of all I went from a full time self employed designer, cabinetmaker and woodworker to a full time and still self employed live of a scenery creator for model railroaders and other modellers. Although I did already work on these things since 2014 the business went sky-high after 2015, going from a couple of mats in the product range to over 300 types of products on the shelf. And I do think that’s something I can be proud of.

So what’s up with this blog? Well what I think I like to do is writing a short piece every week about that what’s on my mind and what I do. Don’t know if that’s interesting but don’t be afraid, I’m not gonna bother you all with soccer and my favourite team nor that I will annoy you with that what’s on the table daily. I just gonna bother you all with that what’s on my mind when I think about products, new layouts and other modelling stuff, with in-between some sharing about my YouTube channel, my photography and how the book is going.

And what will I Io in-between? That’s a hard question, of course I work on more nature related thingies so you all can build the natural looking layouts, dioramas or whatever you like to do with my stuff. And yeah, I will bother you all with my Five Minutes Fridays and all the other plans I have when it comes to my YouTube channel.

For now, happy modelling!! Regards Martin.

Grasses

Last in the row

This is the last in the row of the wild verge line, type D. Comes with or without weeds. Dug out Mike the mechanic to for reference of the size. Mike is a 1:50 scale Preiser figure.

Grasses

Wild Shrubbery

Working recently on a wild shrubbery mat, still in the test phase but I still do like to show development pictures..they will come in a range of 5 and the colors will match my A to E type mats

Grasses

Renewed Wild Verge line

Our range of Wild Verge grassmats is renewed. The range goes from A to E and the letters represent a season. A will stand for spring, B for summer, C for late summer, D for early fall and E for fall. With type D still in production I still like to show you the pictures of the renewed line.

Grasses, Trees

Commissions on trees

Had a lot of doubts lately. Been asked a lot if I want to build trees for customers. With the business going more and more to model railroading I thought what the heck I can do that. So from now on I start building trees on demand. Not sure yet what the actual pricing will be. But it will not be for bargain prices. The trees I offer are to labour-intensive to be in a standard price range but they sure look way better then much other trees on the market.

So if anyone is interested drop me a line through mail or face book..

Trees

Modeling trees part 2

Still in the tree building mood. Besides Pine trees I do like decideous trees alot. Last build I did where a couple of Birches. Some research was necessary becaus there are alot of diverent type of Betula trees. Most common over here are the ones with the hanging branches or the Betula Pendula, more common to the parts of the US I’m modeling is the paperbirch, Betula Papyrifea..

When I start modeling birchtrees I like to think in groups, most trees don’t grow solitary but with a couple in a group together..

Grasses

Heathland

One of the product I like is the heathland or heather.

Trees

Modeling trees part 1

Besides my passion for good looking scale grasses and weeds I do love to model trees. Did start a couple of days ago on some Eastern White Pines. As the Maine state tree I do think they’ll fit my layout very well. Build from simple materials like wooden dowels, florist wire and MDF sawdust, colored with cheap latex wallpaint and camouflage rattlecans. Adding additional branches with grassfibers and the Noch grasmaster I finished them with Woodland Scenics fine turf..

Grasses

Forestfloors

Besides modelrailroads I’m working on materials others can use on theirs. One of the things I’ll produce are grassmats on a very thin fabric. Easy to cut, rip and tear. The productline still expanding but I’ll try to post a couple already in stock. First one will be the forestfloor a multi techniques product available in spring and late summer..

Spring