Letting the Grass Grow

I posted this elsewhere over a few days; I know some of you like to keep up with what I'm doing, so here's the update:

Woodland Scenic’s Field grass (Light Green, FG173) cut and glued by hand, but in clumps. Once the glue dries I'll trim it down, as it's currently over six feet (scale feet) tall!

I added a few more clumps while the glue was setting, to give the area a more realistic appearance:

The challenge will be to trim it and keep the randomness of height.

I also wanted to do a "signature piece" so tried this clump between the tracks near the bridge:

Of course it is just part of the ultimate effect.

A friend commented on it being taller than a man:

I placed a figure from the Preiser Wedding set next to the grass to show how tall it is. Presuming the guy is average height I am not as far off as I thought I was...

So I let the glue dry overnight, and did a little trimming; the idea was not to do everything at once, but to cut it a bit, and leave it to dwell on for a while, and maybe come back and chop some more...

"Hairdressers have scissors that cut every second hair, or something to that effect. If you can ge tyour hands on some of those, then you could play the randomness by cutting the grass a few times at varying heights.

Otherwise angle the scissors into the clumps and chop a few times; this-way, then that-way..."

Great minds think alike; the 'every other' option wouldn't do, as it is too close in, and those types of scissors never seemed to come out on my short head crop, so I'll assume it's a long-hair thing lol. But I did have access to some very small, very sharp cross-stitch scissors, which are used to cut individual threads in a needle point project. The natural fibers seem to be easily cut.

After taking the photo I went back and chopped a few of the tallest ones down some more:

A little more randomness to come, and maybe some more color. I'll try to get better pictures in better light, but mainly wanted to capture the height against a GP35.

Tried a few more minutes of the "Do a bit, leave it, and come back". I must admit it is coming a long nicely, and this would make interesting effects for a large scale layout. But back here in 1:160 land:

I think this is just about enough for this side of the tracks. Now to add some clump foliage and eventually some trees. They need to be sturdy here, or cheap, since this is the grandson's favorite part of the layout (you can see one of his cars in the first picture)...

And looking at the other side of the tracks:

That one long strand got chopped, and I added a few more bits to give a better "high level" view. That's all for now...