And here's where I've decided to pick things back up, this time around I figured maybe I oughta start build it from the ground up, so to speak. So I pulled all the bits out for the tracks. The molding on these is pretty much on par with an old airfix kit from worn out molds, I didn't take any pics, so I'll just say that there was a fair amount of clean up and filler required, and none of the "terrain" matches from on section to the next so a bit of gouging with a good knife along with some glue saturated filler is required to eliminate any perceivable join line through the "gravel".
The rails themselves have ejector pin marks all along one side which will be most difficult to fill, not a big issue, I suppose, unless one plans to mount it on a rotating base in the middle of a room like a piece of pricey artwork
One other issue is that some of the "gravel" interferes with the rails and needs to be cut down.
I decided that I wanted that "concrete" look to the base, so after checking through some model rairoad sights for idea as to how to create a realistic look about the only thing I could find is that concrete has no real consistent look about it, it varies relative to it's ingreedients, age, etc. so I decided to go with something like this appearance wise. This is a piece of the wall next to the area where the Shwerer Gustav was test fired.
First I gave the base an overall coat of light grey, then some random spray of Flat black
Next I oversprayed it with a dirty white mixture with some light green tinting. The green tint proved to be useless in the end, so next time I won't bother with it.
Next I gave it a couple of washes of a light brown, in this case I chose Vallejo's old wood, streaking it downward
After which I gave it another several washes of Vallejo's Dark green, following the same streaking pattern, and then ground up some light grey pastel and rubbed it in with my finger.
So this is where it's at at the moment.