"Welsh Pony" project; first test shoot

A somewhat delayed post due to a bad internet connection for most of the last month.  Anyway, in mid-October I got a chance to do the concept shoot for the Welsh Pony project.  I got the model to about ninety percent completion, and enough track work to shoot a reasonable (hopefully) looking pic.

After much trial and error, mainly error, I ended up improvising working lights using a string of LED Christmas Tree lights.

The track work, using hanging basket liner and sand as ballast, before it was toned down with grey and black spray paint.

On location- assembling the short lengths of board took over an hour, which rather ruined the plan to have quick set-up and dismantle times.  Problems caused mainly by having to thread the bolts through holes which had got partially blocked with sand ballast.  Anyway, the background wasn't quite what I'd wanted, but with it going dark, and a huge thunderstorm closing in, I hadn't got much choice.

This shot shows the high-tech camera rig...

So what now?  The concept pics proved the viability of doing this as a bigger project, and turned out much as I'd hoped, but also showed up a lot of pitfalls and problems.  Firstly, I need a stronger camera rig that doesn't wobble around co much, blurring the photos.  Secondly, longer lengths of track which don't take so long to assemble.  This has led to the third problem, which is that the wheel sets under the loco are too chunky to go along 0 gauge flexitrack, so I need to acquire some better wheels for the "Welsh Pony".  With bad weather and poor light becoming a real issue, I don't think I'll get time to shoot any more pics this side of Christmas, so at least theres plenty of time to sort it out ready for the 'proper' shoot...