Hi Stephen
Thanks for the offer, but I'm 99% certain that I'm happy with the appearance of the partially buried effect even while it's at the unfinished stage.
It was the underside of Tony Gee's gantry that he had on a demo table at last years ExpoEM Summer that provided the motivation to get this started. It provided a plan B if the hole-in-the-wall approach didn't work out. As it is, there are timber supports under the leg, so this one is back to Plan A.
The station gantry is probably next, but is quite different in appearance with the dolls and walkways mounted outside the gantry As partially evidenced in these images -
Station Gantry 1 and
Station gantry 2 . Much more modelling involved, and I think I've worked out how to do it while keeping the character. The usual dearth of good quality photos of the bits you really want to see doesn't help though