Making Model Railroad Scenery Grass with Fake Fur

For those wide open areas on your model railroad layouts, a little bit of foliage can go a long way to adding intrigue and realism to scenery. There are a number of different methods you can use to create the illusion of real model railroad scenery grass, and one of our favorites involves commercial sheets of fake fur. Fake fur can be purchased at any fabric store and comes in a variety of colors, making it ideal for personalizing your model railroad scenery grass to the mood and setting of your scene. In this lesson, we teach you how to use fake fur to prepare, apply and perfect the model railroad scenery grass you create for your next layout.

How to use fake fur as model railroad scenery grass

As with all elements of a model railroad layout, the landscape and foliage you include is entirely customizable, and it can be made to look more and more realistic depending on the amount of time you want to put into it. To help you create the most realistic model railroad scenery grass, NMRA Master Modeler Gerry Leone demonstrates the step-by-step process for using fake fur to add real fields of tall grass to your layouts.

Fake fur is utilized for a variety of projects, most notably in sewing, but Gerry shows you why it’s absolutely perfect for model railroad scenery grass. He teaches you two different methods for adding fake fur to your landscape, one of which is a bit more complex than the other but also adds a fair amount more realism. With his expert techniques, you’ll learn how to utilize your favorite color of this polyester fiber, a pet brush and various types of paint to simulate fields of model railroad scenery grass.

Lastly, real fields of grass are partly alive and partly dead, so Gerry shows you a simple way to use the pet brush and ground foam to give your model railroad scenery grass that realistic texture that will amaze your viewers!