Dont forget the little guys
Although a fair way off yet I can see the light at the end of the tunnel regarding the platform. What this means though is that some serious thought needs to be given to the subject of people. It goes without saying I’m going to need a lot and that’s going to get expensive. However the more there are the more they merge from an individual person to a crowd and the more confused they get. It also means the more corners can be cut. An example of this can be seen below.
The more observant will notice that some of the passengers on this bus are black. Observation of people inside things like buses and trains leads to the realisation that sometimes you really do see little more than a shadow or a dark shape. There’s no need to paint some 4mm scale chaps tie if he is sitting inside a model. The fact that he is there is often enough.
Other than the sheer cost of lots of little people the other thing to consider is the repeats. No point buying 20 packs of the same figures. The 2 chaps on the left are from Bachmann the 2 on the right cheap Chinese figures from ebay. The difference is obvious but the Chinese figures still have their uses. Before I come to that some thoughts on paint. A lot of modellers follow the way the military guys paint larger scale figures but is that the right approach? Most large scale figures are the point of the model but not only that they are highly stylised, kind of like a style in a painting but do they actually look real? More importantly do the same methods scale down to to a figure that’s only 24 mm high?
Its my opinion that they don’t and that we can easily fall into the trap of modelling what we think we know and not what we actually see. For a real person to look about an inch tall they need to be a good few hundred feet away and you cant see detail from that far away. Figures 2 and 4 in the picture above have had a light wash of black applied to bring out the shadows a tad but that’s it. The other thing I quite like about the mixing of figures is that they are not all the same height.
All this talk of distance and what we actually see doesn’t mean that the 2 chaps on the right are OK, Far from it they are crudely moulded and crudely painted but all is not lost.
By mixing the figures and putting the better ones at the front a crowd is born and for a lot less money than using all higher quality figures. If you could try to imagine how I think the platforms will look they will be reasonably dark, what light there is will be a horrible colour and the ceilings are low with a lot of stuff in the way of a lot of the views. The people need to do what all the other details on the layout do and that is kind of disappear into the scene, They shouldn’t scream out at the viewer but just simply ‘be there’
1, 2, 3, 4,… …38, 39, 40!
Thanks to some helpful feedback on a forum I have redone the pillars so that the bumpers are higher up (thanks again to Tim for re-lasering me some) and continued with building more. I dunno how I missed the bumper height as I had set them at the right height on the walls.
The title of this post refers to me building a batch of 40 TV monitors for the platforms. A simple enough task with a bit of Evergreen square tube, some strip sections and a spot of glue and a file but the numbers mean it took a whole afternoon! The reason why the middle one doesn’t have any brackets is the monitors are on the none viewing side of the pillar. That’s true for the one on the left too but being on the first platform I thought you might see the brackets from some angles.
Below is how they look in situe
Gangways for DMU’s
Hi All
I’ll get back to the oddball DMU in the next entry but this time (and still related) I have been looking at gangways. The ones Bachmann supply with their first gen’ DMU’s are quite nice and correctly feature the double scissors that most DMU’s carry. However it doesnt really matter how nice they are if there is still a gap between them.
The easiest way to fix this is to use something like these (or make your own) and while not super accurate, lets face it no one is going to notice anyway! However I have for a long time been a fan of the Masokits gangway (see here for Masokits) which while perhaps a bit OTT and a bit tricky to build are well worth having a go at.
Basically it still works the same way, essentially folded paper but surrounded by etched ends and that all important scissors framework. The etchy bits when assembled look like this.
There are some extra brackets in the kit (which i left off) and it also caters for different types (GWR or LMS). You can even lock them together as per the prototype if you want too! I pretty much followed the instructions with one deviation. The instructions suggest soldering the backs of the pins with a oiled Rizzla (other makes are avialable) paper acting as a barrier. I chose to solder the pin to the outer arm and crimp it when assembled to old it all together. In reality the paper pushes the arms outwards keeping everything in place anyway.
One painted (carefully!) the paper is folded up and popped into place and a small peice of crepe paper (supplied in the kit) is glued over the top to represent the tarpauling. (you could easily add this to the ones mentioned earlier to improve them if you wanted too.)
The finished result on a class 108 DMU. I only fit one as the exhausts tend to interfere with them working. A light dusting of weathering is all thats needed. As I said at the start, no one is going to notice anyway but thats not the point!
14th April 2010
Several updates this time, starting with my work on producing parts to help people model Scale OLE. Go to the layout section to see more.
Updated a few of the stock galleries too with classes 08, 25, 50 and 87 all having new pictures. There is a new gallery for class 86 too.
There is a new area in the scenic section for things that don’t really fit in the other sections or warrant a section of their own. Its in the scenic section under miscellaneous.
4th December 2008
Work progresses on the retaining walls and they are not far from finished now. Just the laborious task of picking out different bricks in various different shades. Go to the scenary section for more pictures of progress so far.