The riverbank

 I lightly sanded the particle board and applied a couple of layers of latex paint to seal the bed and get it relatively smooth.

I also drilled a hole for the foreground bridge wiring to go under the table. I'm powering the rails on the bridges because I plan on removing them everyonce in awhile, and I dont trust the joiners to supply a good connection. I will use code 80 joiners to keep the rails aligned and they will be able to slide back on the rails so I can lift the bridges out. 

I made some rock facings using air dry clay. I had a lot of success using regular clay and impressing it with gravel to make facings for miniature wargaming scenery, so I thought I would try this for the river bank. I secured the rocks with sculptamold. There was some cracking during the drying process which I was hoping wouldn't happen, but it wasn't severe and some of the cracks disappeared when they had completely dried.

I didn't get the detail I wanted from facings, and I felt they had too much of a stacked look, so I decided to use my home made silicone molds and make plaster castings for the rocks. I broke out the air dry clay rock and put the plaster cast ones in place

new plaster castings

I left a couple of the air dry clay ones in place (gray colored), but the plaster cast ones went in smoothly, and ended up looking much better. I also added some wet plaster to a couple of areas and did some hand carving. 

I stained the rocks with yellow ochre, burnt sienna, and raw umber washes. I did a test using a black wash for the final step but it was too dark, so I skipped that on the river bank. I added some ground foam foliage ( too light colored, but fixable) to separate the facings.

I also repainted the backdrop in this area with a different selection of colors. I think I matched a late Fall, early Winter look better than the original colors.