Saturday, November 29, 2008

Bingham Canyon


Sometime in the future, if I have the space and I want to do a mountain theme, this is prototype railroad that I would love to model.  I wish any of this was still around, but all is gone so more copper could be mined.  From these photos the scenes are begging to be modeled, and as far as I know nobody has yet.

Tuesday, November 25, 2008

Dominion Building Update


(click on image for full size)

 If you glance briefly at the pictures it may look like I haven't done much work.  But if you look close much has been done.  First I have the beginnings of the back under way, but as of yet nothing worth showing.  I also have added a strip of detail along the edge above the arched windows, it added some desperately needed detail to the top.   
The most work I have done is on window frames and the detailing between floors on the facade.  As of yet I have added 6 pieces of .020 x .040" and .020 x .030" strip styrene to the 65 windows on the 4th - 8th floors.  That is 390 parts so far, I will have doubled that when the windows are done on those five floors.  It is a mind numbing experience and I sort of go into a Zen state and the time fly's by.
The other long task is the detail that I am adding between the floors.  It is done between floors 7 and 8 and 75% done on the next floor down.  Each row will be a different from the others.  The finished rows are made from .020 x .020", .010 x .020" and .010 x .080" strip.  I will finish the rows before I finish of the windows so I don't risk breaking out anything, like I have done on the other floors.
Initially this building was to be placed at the back of my future city, and because of this I had skimped on the detail of the windows and the back.  Now it will still be at the back but I have become more picky and am striving for a more detailed structure.  Because of this I have cut out some of the windows that I had finished and will do them "correctly" because before they looked like I was cutting corners and not putting forth my full effort.
I still have quite a bit of work left and if anybody has questions or suggestions please leave a comment so I don't feel like I am talking to a wall.
Thanks,
Chris

close up of detail 
(click on image for full size)

Monday, November 17, 2008

Dominion Building


I started back up on the Dominion Building, and I am having a lot of fun.  I am glad I took a few months off from it cause I learned much from the other little buildings that I built.  I am hopping that the excitement continues till I finish it, but it is going to be hard when I start to build the 60-70 windows from scratch,  I need to learn how to cast parts. 
 If you look at earlier pictures of the building I was experimenting with a paper brick pattern on the 4th thru 8th floors and thats about when I stopped.  I have ripped off all of the paper due to the fact it looked like poo and wasn't giving me the results I desired.  I have now laminated on textured brick plastic and added a little detail with strips of three rows of brick to add further dimension.  The color has been difficult to decide on, (the first coat came out a nasty Dijon mustard color).  I think I like the color of the brick now, its a bit of a kaki color.  Now that the brick is done I am starting to finish off the back.  Initially I was going to leave it unfinished because it will never be seen, but now that I will most likely be entering it in a show in March I needs to be finished.  
I am sorry for the bad pictures I was using them to see if the colors work in natural light.


Sunday, November 16, 2008

Small but very good N-Scale layout

This is a small N-scale layout built on a 36"x80" door. For its small size it is done well and feels like a much larger setup.

Sunday, November 9, 2008

Section Houses


These little guys are section houses for the track gang to reside in.  This is about as far as I take these until they have a final resting place.  I knocked these out in about 8 hours, not used to structures going so fast.