New Ankh

[HonestTom]

Hi all. So I've had this itch I've wanted to scratch for quite a long time. I'm a huge fan of the Discworld books by the late Sir Terry Pratchett, and I'm a particular fan of the penultimate book in the series, Raising Steam, in which railways finally arrive on the Disc. This book is a real treat for railway nuts. Sir Terry really did his research, and consequently there are lots of references to railway history and lore that act as easter eggs for the likes of us. Ironically, given that it's a comic fantasy novel set in a world of magic and myth, the railway is portrayed far more accurately than in most "serious" works. So for a long time, I've wanted to pay tribute to the book with a micro-layout depicting the Ankh-Morpork and Sto Plains Hygienic Railway. While going through some boxes of stuff, I recently found quite a lot of stuff that inspired me to actually get going and start work.

 

For non-Discworld readers, the Discworld is a flat planet flying through space on the back of a turtle. At first glance, it's your standard fantasy world, with dwarfs, trolls, wizards, witches, vampires etc. But it tends to subvert the old fantasy cliches - the nameless city guards are the heroes, the wizards spend more time on childish bickering than on actual magic and the Grim Reaper is firmly on the side of humanity. Here, you can find geriatric barbarian heroes, explosive dragons and an orangutan librarian.

 

The biggest city on the Disc is Ankh-Morpork, which over the course of the series becomes a vividly realised location with elements reminiscent of London, Venice, Budapest, Seattle, Tallinn and in fact just about any old European or American city. It's been undergoing something of a Renaissance, gaining a free press, a modern banking system and, of course, the Discworld's first main line railway. The books specify that the railway runs out of New Ankh, the suburbs of the city which, conveniently for me, aren't mapped out.

 

The layout itself will depict a small temporary terminus on one of the suburban branches of the AM&SPHR and feature a typical Ankh-Morpork street scene. So far completed are the backscene and the first of the houses, because I seem to be working backwards on this one. Pictures to follow as soon as I can get them uploaded.

[Guest mydadstoys]

HonestTom this sounds very interesting will look forward to seeing some pictures and your layout develop.

[HonestTom]

Here’s the first building - it doesn’t take a detective to spot that it’s the cottage from this month’s BRM, which looks just right for the effect I’m trying to get. Here it is depicted mid-weathering, using the secret weapon in my arsenal - eyeshadow.

I tend to get cheap matt eyeshadow, which can be used exactly like weathering powder, but can be obtained for a fraction of the cost. I tend to be quite sceptical about card kits, but I'm really rather pleased with the way this one came together, and therefore I'm planning on doing the rest of the buildings in card (which will also keep the cost down).

Edited October 19, 2018 by HonestTom

[Guest mydadstoys]

Nice modelling HonestTom. There is nothing wrong with using some eye shadow.

[HonestTom]

Nice modelling HonestTom. There is nothing wrong with using some eye shadow.

 

Ta. This isn't the kind of model that normally wears eyeshadow, I think.

 

My other great hobby is backstage theatre work, and it teaches you a lot about looking for cheap alternatives. I was working on some horror FX makeup earlier this year, for which I used an eyeshadow palette, and I found myself wondering what the difference was between this powdery pigment and regular weathering powder, and it turns out that actually I'm far from the first person to think of this. I apply it using cheap makeup brushes. Now I've just got to make sure that I don't get my theatrical makeup confused with my modelling makeup, or I'll either wind up with grubby actors or the prettiest locomotives around.

[HonestTom]

Hullo all,
Here’s a pic of the baseboard along with the sky background and a rough idea of the track. Operations will be fairly simple, as you can see.

I thought a gloomy, cloudy backscene would be more in keeping with Ankh-Morpork than the common "perpetual summer" look. No doubt they get sunny days in Ankh-Morpork, but not today.

Edited October 22, 2018 by HonestTom

[Guest mydadstoys]

HonestTom a simple little layout but loads of fun shunting all the same. I do like your back scene nicely modelled.

[Edwardian]

 

I thought a gloomy, cloudy backscene would be more in keeping with Ankh-Morpork than the common "perpetual summer" look. No doubt they get sunny days in Ankh-Morpork, but not today.

 

Great project.

 

Not sure you'd want to smell the River Ankh on a sunny summer's day!

[HonestTom]

HonestTom a simple little layout but loads of fun shunting all the same. I do like your back scene nicely modelled.

 

I thank you. I'm planning on including a small wooden platform so I can augment the shunting with a few passenger operations. The basic idea is that this is a suburban branch line, pretty new, serving an up-and-coming area of the city that has some developing industry, so I can justify a wide variety of traffic (plus some of the more unusual traffic flows that a place like Ankh-Morpork would get).

 

Great project.

 

Not sure you'd want to smell the River Ankh on a sunny summer's day!

 

I did actually consider adding the Ankh. There are some wargaming suppliers who produce suitable boats, and I was planning on using some of Games Workshop's textured paints to represent the "water." Unfortunately, the size of the boards I had available led me to abandon that idea - I definitely wanted to include a street scene and I wouldn't have room for both without it looking cramped. Maybe if I ever extended...

[HonestTom]

Second building is done. The Metcalfe half-timbered shop is very Ankh-Morpork. I’d like to get a couple of street corners in, basically so I can have more people facing the viewer. Here’s an experimental placing of the buildings. The little green chap will eventually be a History Monk. I think the monks must be taking an interest in the railways, because otherwise how do you explain the fact that they get from a Catch-Me-Who-Can-style prototype to a transcontinental line in under two years?

[Edwardian]

Second building is done. The Metcalfe half-timbered shop is very Ankh-Morpork. I’d like to get a couple of street corners in, basically so I can have more people facing the viewer. Here’s an experimental placing of the buildings. The little green chap will eventually be a History Monk. I think the monks must be taking an interest in the railways, because otherwise how do you explain the fact that they get from a Catch-Me-Who-Can-style prototype to a transcontinental line in under two years?

 

Looking good. I agree that the Metcalfe half-timbered shops are very Ankh Morpork.

 

The Disc is supposed to use the most recognisable or iconic representation of any subject, thus Vampires wear late Nineteenth Century evening dress, complete with cape and top hat, whereas Barbarian Heroes wear scanty amounts of leather and fur! 

 

This makes the architecture interesting.  Illustrations tend to show the Guilds as similar to various Victorian buildings built in revivalist styles.  Old Ankh housing is very half-timbered, but increasingly set within a rather Dickensian London type of Ankh.  The Hogfather film places the Middle Class household in Victorian clothes and a Georgian terrace.  New Ankh might well also have such houses.

 

Here is a low relief kit that gives you town houses, a half-timbered building and an old stone warehouse.  Suitably 'back-dated', I wonder if they could provide a representative suitable selection of Ankh Morpork architecture?

 

https://scalescenes.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/T005a_featured.jpg

[HonestTom]

Many thanks, that is rather interesting. The middle two buildings in particular look rather Morporkian. I have a couple of building kits awaiting construction, but that's a definite possibility if there's space left. I'm also planning on including a Clacks tower (adapted from a wind pump kit).

 

I agree on the architectural style - pretty much everyone except Josh Kirby seems to view the Disc that way. I looked into some of the continental building suppliers as well, as Sir Terry describes Ankh-Morpork as having European elements.

 

The fashion of the people of Ankh-Morpork brings up a point that gave me a few headaches - how do I represent the weird and wonderful inhabitants? I'm planning on ordering some Andrew Stadden figures for the ordinary citizenry. Some Revell 1/72 English foot soldiers from the Hundred Years' War will represent the Watch. Airfix's Robin Hood set has provided me with some Assassins and working class citizens (and Friar Tuck is to become a wizard if I can figure this sculpting lark out). Some Airfix Ancient Britons will be turned into Hubland barbarians and, with strategic amputation, dwarfs. Noch do a Grim Reaper figure and some very Hammer Horror vampires, which I'd be a fool not to include...

 

(Oh yeah, and one of the things that triggered this whole project was the discovery of a bag of Langley monkeys and apes. One of the apes will be turned into the Librarian, but of course I have no use for the mon- er, the M-words)

Edited October 24, 2018 by HonestTom

[Marly51]

That Scalescenes low relief kit of a group of buildings is great. I am kitbashing small sections of it just now!

 

Marlyn

[HonestTom]

This is the next building. It was a kit that came free with a magazine some years back. A few bits were missing and so I tried to fix it up as best I could. I think it’ll probably have a lot of stuff going on around it to distract from the general shoddiness. This shop is owned by Mr Jeffries, who obey’s the Guild of Grocer’s strict rule’s on apostrophe’s.

[Angliacan]

Many thanks, that is rather interesting. The middle two buildings in particular look rather Morporkian. I have a couple of building kits awaiting construction, but that's a definite possibility if there's space left. I'm also planning on including a Clacks tower (adapted from a wind pump kit).

 

I agree on the architectural style - pretty much everyone except Josh Kirby seems to view the Disc that way. I looked into some of the continental building suppliers as well, as Sir Terry describes Ankh-Morpork as having European elements.

 

The fashion of the people of Ankh-Morpork brings up a point that gave me a few headaches - how do I represent the weird and wonderful inhabitants? I'm planning on ordering some Andrew Stadden figures for the ordinary citizenry. Some Revell 1/72 English foot soldiers from the Hundred Years' War will represent the Watch. Airfix's Robin Hood set has provided me with some Assassins and working class citizens (and Friar Tuck is to become a wizard if I can figure this sculpting lark out). Some Airfix Ancient Britons will be turned into Hubland barbarians and, with strategic amputation, dwarfs. Noch do a Grim Reaper figure and some very Hammer Horror vampires, which I'd be a fool not to include...

 

(Oh yeah, and one of the things that triggered this whole project was the discovery of a bag of Langley monkeys and apes. One of the apes will be turned into the Librarian, but of course I have no use for the mon- er, the M-words)

Tom

 

I've got a few OO/HO plastic Dark  Ages & Middle Ages soldiers,  Barbarian,  Zulu's etc. Not much use on Brazilian Coffee Plantation or to convert to HO. So if you like some them give me a PM.

 

 

Then if there any use I could send you them.

Edited October 24, 2018 by Angliacan

[Edwardian]

That Scalescenes low relief kit of a group of buildings is great. I am kitbashing small sections of it just now!

 

Marlyn

 

I must take the plunge.  You could have a lot of fun with that (and probably building most of Ankh by reprinting and adapting the half-timbered section).

 

 

Many thanks, that is rather interesting. The middle two buildings in particular look rather Morporkian. I have a couple of building kits awaiting construction, but that's a definite possibility if there's space left. I'm also planning on including a Clacks tower (adapted from a wind pump kit).

 

I agree on the architectural style - pretty much everyone except Josh Kirby seems to view the Disc that way. I looked into some of the continental building suppliers as well, as Sir Terry describes Ankh-Morpork as having European elements.

 

The fashion of the people of Ankh-Morpork brings up a point that gave me a few headaches - how do I represent the weird and wonderful inhabitants? I'm planning on ordering some Andrew Stadden figures for the ordinary citizenry. Some Revell 1/72 English foot soldiers from the Hundred Years' War will represent the Watch. Airfix's Robin Hood set has provided me with some Assassins and working class citizens (and Friar Tuck is to become a wizard if I can figure this sculpting lark out). Some Airfix Ancient Britons will be turned into Hubland barbarians and, with strategic amputation, dwarfs. Noch do a Grim Reaper figure and some very Hammer Horror vampires, which I'd be a fool not to include...

 

(Oh yeah, and one of the things that triggered this whole project was the discovery of a bag of Langley monkeys and apes. One of the apes will be turned into the Librarian, but of course I have no use for the mon- er, the M-words)

 

Those are all great ideas.

 

There are some 1/72nd fantasy sets that would get you a Gandalfian wizard, dwarves with mail, helmet, axe etc.

 

The Angst Less Pork 009 layout used, IIRC, Roman soldiers for the Watch.  A bit of imagination and a smidgeon of Green Stuff and the possibilities are endless  ...

[HonestTom]

I did consider the Romans and also the Sheriff of Nottingham's Men for the Watch. To be honest, I think you could get away with pretty much any old-looking armour - the books seem to indicate that at least at the start of the series, the Watch used whatever armour they could get their hands on. I looked at various interpretations of the characters before selecting my figures and I think mismatched is the way to go. I think it's Sybil Ramkin who describes them in one book as "the Boys in Brown," so that's the uniform colour selected at least. I did consider going with a more modern police uniform to represent some railway officers, but I don't think it would be the right fit.

 

I had a look at some of the fantasy ranges, and while there are some interesting figures, I didn't find any that really seemed to fit. There were some dwarves that seemed to have potential, but they scale up to about 5ft tall, which is a little oversized to my thinking. I think I probably need a goblin or two running about the place, if I can find some that don't look too obviously like they're charging into battle. As for trolls and golems, I think they may be a job for the greenstuff.

 

EDIT: I just noticed that close-up photography is a little cruel to my backscene, but I think up close you can see roughly what I did. If anyone wanted to recreate the effect, I used two shades of grey (because I am not as profligate as E L James). I painted a thick layer of the lighter grey on, then while it was still wet, blobbed on some darker grey and then roughly blended the two with a kiddie paintbrush. The paint was just sample pots from Wilko, who I think do pretty well out of railway modellers.

Edited October 25, 2018 by HonestTom

[SRman]

I hope you don't mind, HonestTom, but I have posted a link to your topic on a Facebook Terry Pratchett group (I'm a member of that too). There have already been a few responses from people who love what you are doing here - as do I.

It is really nice to see something imaginatively different, and also STP related. Keep up the inspiration. I'll be following this with great interest.

:thumbsup:

[HonestTom]

I hope you don't mind, HonestTom, but I have posted a link to your topic on a Facebook Terry Pratchett group (I'm a member of that too). There have already been a few responses from people who love what you are doing here - as do I.

 

It is really nice to see something imaginatively different, and also STP related. Keep up the inspiration. I'll be following this with great interest.

 

:thumbsup:

 

I don't mind at all - I'm flattered. Many thanks!

[Nile_Griffith]

Will there be a figure of C.M.O.T. Dibbler selling suspicious pork products in a bun from a tray around his neck, or maybe if it's a particularly busy station he might be able to afford a barrow?

 

It's funny how differing readers of the various Discworld novels generate different images in their own minds for the differing characters and places. I was once asked to try and "Place" Ankh Morpork and the best I could come up with was suggest that someone combined Blackadder with Lord of the Rings and that might be a good starting point.

 

However I shall be watching this with interest.

 

Librarians Rule Ooooooook.

Edited October 25, 2018 by Nile_Griffith

[Edwardian]

It may be becoming clear that I have mulled over how to represent the Disc in 1/76 and that I have my own plans for the AM&SPHR.  The wonderful thing is the number of different visualisations that are possible.  It's prototype modelling, but not as we know it!  

 

There is already Angst Less Pork, which I understand helped inspire Raising Steam, and I love some of the structures on that layout in particular, and soon, I hope, we'll see your take on it.

 

You obviously have a love for, and good grasp of, the subject and I like the choices you are making. I am really looking forward to seeing your project developing.  

Edited October 25, 2018 by Edwardian

[HonestTom]

Will there be a figure of C.M.O.T. Dibbler selling suspicious pork products in a bun from a tray around his neck, or maybe if it's a particularly busy station he might be able to afford a barrow?

 

It's funny how differing readers of the various Discworld novels generate different images in their own minds for the differing characters and places. I was once asked to try and "Place" Ankh Morpork and the best I could come up with was suggest that someone combined Blackadder with Lord of the Rings and that might be a good starting point.

 

However I shall be watching this with interest.

 

Librarians Rule Ooooooook.

 

One of the things I initially thought when starting out was that I didn't want to overpopulate the layout with specific characters. That being said, I think I have to have Dibbler, because he shows up everywhere - and if you can't find CMOT, you can find one of his many distant cousins. I forget whether it was Raising Steam or Mrs Bradshaw's Guidebook that said he'd got into property speculation with the rise of the railway, so I definitely have an excuse to bring him in. It also means that I have an excuse for any wonky buildings on the layout.

 

I did consider giving him a private owner wagon on the railway - I found an old Hornby Palethorpe's Pork Sausages van in storage, and thought it might be neat to turn it into a Dibbler's "Pork" Sausages van. However, I don't think Dibbler sells enough sausages-inna-bun to justify such a wagon, so I'm planning on turning it into a pork futures wagon. I wonder if any of the dwarf tunnels from Thud! run under the Pork Futures warehouse? Maybe I could have the Discworld equivalent of London's Smithfield meat trains. They're pretty lightweight because the meat doesn't exist yet.

Edited October 25, 2018 by HonestTom

[HonestTom]

It may be becoming clear that I have mulled over how to represent the Disc in 1/76 and that I have my own plans for the AM&SPHR.  The wonderful thing is the number of different visualisations that are possible.  It's prototype modelling, but not as we know it!  

 

There is already Angst Less Pork, which I understand helped inspire Raising Steam, and I love some of the structures on that layout in particular, and soon, I hope, we'll see your take on it.

 

You obviously have a love for, and good grasp of, the subject and I like the choices you are making. I am really looking forward to seeing your project developing.  

 

Many thanks. Interesting that Angst inspired Raising Steam. I do remember being curious that a railway was appearing in canon after the layout showed up. Angst Lesspork is a great interpretation of the books. I remember when it first came out being quite enthralled. They definitely know their Discworld.

 

What's great about the AM&SPHR is how much research Pterry did, and I think that was what really captured my interest in the subject. Yet at the same time, while it's pretty well-researched, there's enough leeway to allow for fan interpretation - I've had a lot of fun thinking about the curious rolling stock you'd get on a Discworld railway. Ideas I'd like to incorporate include a dragon van, a pork futures van and a fat tanker from Uberwald.

[hnorwood]

Hello! Thank you for your kind comments. Angst-Lesspork is my layout. Still going strong - we were at Hartlepool last weekend.

 

I did get Sir Terry Pratchett's permission to exhibit the layout; bit difficult to do now, but his agent could put you on to those who look after his intellectual property.

 

Here is a video of the layout I took at the Fareham show earlier this month

 

https://youtu.be/X6NB3GrDgho

 

More on the layout here: http://hnorwood.co.uk/files/angst.htm

[Edwardian]

Hello! Thank you for your kind comments. Angst-Lesspork is my layout. Still going strong - we were at Hartlepool last weekend.

 

I did get Sir Terry Pratchett's permission to exhibit the layout; bit difficult to do now, but his agent could put you on to those who look after his intellectual property.

 

Here is a video of the layout I took at the Fareham show earlier this month

 

https://youtu.be/X6NB3GrDgho

 

More on the layout here: http://hnorwood.co.uk/files/angst.htm

 

Good to hear from you.  I think I saw it at York, IIRC, but the gentleman operating it, although perfectly friendly, was not the builder and could not say much about it. 

 

The photographs I posted were taken in 2017.  I took a lot!