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More Zapping

Those that follow this blog will know two things:

  • I recently designed and had laser cut parts for my own baseboard on the Brimstone RR which led to a follow up job to design, get cut and build the baseboards for the new Henmore Dale Railway.
  • When I go to Wales I stay with Phil Traxson of Port Wynnstay fame and that I drive trains on the Festiniog Railway.

Both of these things have led to more designing and laser cutting.

First up was my mate and FR Ops Manager, Tickle, wanting some modular boards that would fit in a Ikea Billy Book case shelf so he could display his models when the weather was too horrible for the garden railway (he hasn’t built yet).

The idea was that two of them would be stand alone units whilst the other two would have open ends and be capable of being joined when not in the bookcase.

What turned up was this kit of laser cut parts and a lot of masking tape that is the same colour as the plywood.

From a design point of view the tricky bit was making them strong and rigid whilst not impinging on to the visible space too much,

The finished things looked like this in my workshop. They have since been delivered and I hope to get a picture of them in situ on my next visit to Wales.

I’ve impressed myself with these small modules and am wondering if the diorama I was thinking about in an earlier post might grow a bit to fit in one if I ever get round to it.

The second project for Phil is the resurrection of part of the old Henmore Dale Layout. Phil has some of the old boards for reuse in a home setting and recently took delivery of  the creamery board.

A few evenings tidying up a rum surplus concluded that this board wouldn’t fit in the layout being built around his modelling room and thus a new layout was born. The idea now is that the creamery will form a stand alone exhibitable layout and thus it needs a fiddle yard.

The original construction was the old 2 by 1 and chipboard. Left to his own devices the same construction would have been used for the fiddle yard. This would have limited the scenic options and I thought we could do better.

About a third of the board needs to be scenic and it has to manage the exit stage left frim the scene into a cassette type fiddle yard.

What I have come up with is a laser cut plywood board featuring some height transitions to below datum for a stream and above datum with the roadway bridge over the railway.

Most of the board is made of 6mm ply, doubled up in places. The bridge and the backscene are made of two layers of 3mm ply laminated together for both strength and to set them in their curved profiles. This is a bit of an experiment so I hope it works.

This is with the laser now so we’ll find out if it works in a couple of weeks. For the laser cutting I use …

 

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Was it Worth It?

As predicted………

You can hardly see the figures now they are `on the job’ as it were and you have to wonder if it was worth the effort. This is on a model that I am now trying to finish to a deadline.

Given that it took me close to two days to get raw 3D printed figures mounted on rods, painted and installed in their workplace a more slapdash and quicker approach might have done.

I am pleased with the results and am therefore going to come down on the side of it being worth the effort for the following reasons.

 

  • I know they were done properly
  • I have to push myself with my modelling
  • It’s part of learning to do a better job

The thing is this. Not having painted figures before I think I’m no good at it. Not totally true, I’ve splodged paint on engine crew in the past and from those rubbish efforts I know how bad they were.

I kept putting this off but then decided that it was time to learn to do it properly with base colours and then shading with washes and filters. The figures were primed and than sprayed black from the feet towards the head. The aim there is to get back in the underside of folds and edges where there would be shadow. Next they were sprayed from above lightly with white. This is to get white on the upward facing surfaces where light would shine.

Only now did I add any actual colours and I’ll let you into a secret, the only blue I had was sky blue, way too light & bright for overalls but by spraying it lightly over the pre shading it took on slightly different shades of blue and, done mostly from above it didn’t get on the shadowy undersides of jackets and creases. I finished of with post shading, washes and filters applied to enhance the `lighter’ bits and darken the shadows. Lastly a spray of matt varnish brought a mix of finished together.

Its actually a good thing you can’t see their faces because that is the worst part of the figure painting. Part of the problem is that the facial features on the printed figures is poorly defined but the colours don’t work.

Skin isn’t just pink! This has some carry over into my photography interest where light is everything and you can highlight or shade with light to enhance or hide features.

Do I still not like painting figures?  No, but worryingly I feel a figure painting rabbit hole opening up. Speed wise for the O scale figures rather than doing two chaps at a time I ‘d set up and do the prep and initial spray work on a batch of figures as this will reduce the waiting time for paints drying, Brush works could be done later to customise each figure without the full desk chaos. I am tempted – post deadline -to get some larger `fleshy’ 3D models and practice skin tones on them.

 

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