Looking for some advice on how to make washes using latex or water based paint as the base. Can anyone suggest what sort of proportions they have used? Started by taking a 3:1 ratio of water to paint, but the paint was still too viscous to be considered a wash and the results were plaster rock molds that appeared to be painted, with little color variation. Added some old washes that I had based on Woodland Scenics wash to improve them. Hoping that someone will have some advice and experience as WS washes are way to expensive to do a large layout.

There is a section of Easy Model Railroad Inventory named Favorites where you can save the Internet path to your favorite sites and categorize the pictures on your hard drive. I am working on a new building for my layout and wanted it to look really good. There were details that needed to be added that I knew nothing about. The back walls of buildings, scuppers, gas and electric meters, dumpsters. I went to my friend the Internet and Google Images in particular. I found a lot of pictures.

Ever since reading John Armstrong's Track Planning for Realistic Operations I've been intrigued by his drawing of a "shoofly" (page 123, 3rd ed.). It's a simple scene of track diverted over a fill while a crew repaired / rebuilt a bridge over a small stream, yet contained the possibility of multiple "stories" within the scene (not only the work on the rails, but the land just outside of railroad property: orchards, farms, roads, forests, etc.)

So I designed a 2'x6' "Shoofly" module: