Let it Snow!

In 61 years of living in Auckland I've known it to snow once. About twelve years ago on a cold winter's day in July I recall looking out the office window as a hail shower swept through. Then that hail got lighter and someone said "it's snowing!" And it was. It was very light and it didn't settle and within less than a minute the snow had turned to rain. Other parts of the city reported similar experiences so we weren't just imagining it. At 37 degrees South we are in a temperate climate zone, close to sea level so this sort of event is very rare - I think the only other recorded event was in the 1930s. So apart from my experience visiting family in Canada at Christmas time and from time spent on the ski fields of the Central Plateau my knowledge of snow behaviour is limited, so if I have made some wrong assumptions below I trust I can be forgiven.

With the barn an outbuilding finished it is time for the snow to fall on them. I want a heavier snow on these than on the house. The rationale behind this is twofold: first, on the outbuilding, the pitch of the roof is shallow so snow would not run off as easily, and second, on the barn the lower amount of heat generated from within (given that the house would have fires burning for heat and cooking) might lessen the run off there. 

The 'snow' I am using is the Woodland Scenic Soft Flake Snow that I bought years ago for the Retreat from Moscow project.

To get the effect of snow on the roofs I followed a YouTube tutorial, mixing the snow with PVA until it forms a paste that will not drip from the mixing stick.

The mix is then daubed onto the surface of the roof. It is always a bit of a shame to cover over all the detailed work that has gone into making the roof in the first place, but it is the best way to get the right effect and painting the roof after the snow is applied would be difficult.

There are three gotchas when applying the snow. The first is to remember that the PVA is going to shrink as it dries and if your roof us not well anchored to the model its going to curl up...the sample piece I made on an bit of thin card curled up to a U shape. So on the outbuilding, that has a rather simple roof that is lightly connected, I started off on one corner and along the joint, just in case the shrinkage is greater than expected. Once this first bit is set I can have confidence that it won't curl because the stuff sets like concrete.

On the barn, which has a much more ridged roof structure, the mix can be applied along the full length of the ridge.

The second gotcha is that if you simply daub it on the mix it will run slightly and you run the risk of the whole thing looking like the icing on a Krispy Kreme donut. So once the mix begins to set it is important to rework the edges with the mixing stick to get a less regular edge as I have below. At the same time I have left areas where the snow has either melted or run off.

The third gotcha is that when the mix is made many tiny air bubbles are trapped and when the mix dries the surface is pockmarked. This has to be corrected by applying a thin coat of PVA over the pockmarked parts and lightly sprinkling some of the snow flakes over it.

To finish off the building I applied matt varnish to parts of the walls, especially on any protruding edges, and snow powder is sprinkled on it from above.

The build process then moves onto the base. This was cut from 3mm MDF, the holes for the fence posts were drilled and the posts installed. The two buildings have been glued on and some sand has been applied to areas where I want some mud to show through the snow.

Next the whole base is painted in a light brown tone and when that is dried I washed it with a thinned down coat of Aly's Brown Liquid, the recipe for which can be found here. 

The sanded areas were then given a highlight and a bit of gloss varnish to indicate mud.

The next item to be attacked was the fencing. This is a simple matchstick post and three rail fence.

The fences were then painted black and dry-brushed in various shades to get the brown / grey of weathered timber.

Snowmaking now begins on the base. Like the recently made house I want a slushy snow. So making the same mix as described above, but keeping it quite wet to start with, I applied the mix to the edges of the buildings and along the inner edge of the fence line. I then worked in from the edges with a slightly thicker mix, even adding some of this thicker mix to the edges as went, allowing the snow to form lumps in places. It was necessary to constantly go back and rework areas as I went in part to prevent that Krispy Kreme effect, but also to release those pesky air bubbles. The mix can always be thinned with the application of a little more glue or water. In fact using some of my disgustingly dirty paint water added a grubbiness to that slushy effect that I wanted. It took about 45 minutes to get to this state.

Here it was left for the mix to set.

The next step was to complete the area outside the fence. I wanted this to be a little less slushy, but not Krispy Kreme icing either. I also wanted a little bit greenery be showing. And the final step was to apply snow to the fences and the few pieces of shrubbery. 

Here is the completed house and outbuildings set.