The story
My regular readers know that I like to create a background story for my diorama’s. I mostly do this before I start building and sometimes when I suggestion comes along in the comments of my blog entries, for instance adding a poster on the brick wall.
G.W. Barlow & Son Ltd / Pawnbrokers & Jewellers No. 14 Queens Street - Closed shop
The shop first opened in Northall as a jewellers and pawnbrokers in 1900. The shop was from the beginning situated on Queen Street and
The last building The last shop is also closed. It’s an ironmongers shop, called A. Leach & Co. Ironmongers limited
Different appearance The shop sign is created by myself using Publisher. One of the advantages for me is that I can save my Publisher creation as a jpeg file. The shop is made with different textures from different kits and texture sheets from Scalescenes. The give the diorama a lot look at I gave it a totally different appearance with a lot of details.
Modelling
The middle building The shop in the middle of the building is still in use. I know how to create windows for a derelict building. So for my first building I had no problem. But how to crate believable windows above the shop for my second building?
A late 1950’s Laundry shop I always try to create a believable late 1950’s scene. First I make a choice for my shop. For that I use pictures out that period. I found useful pictures to help me to create my scene. I have also some good usable textur
For this project I used a reference picture with a row of derelict shops. I never follow the picture to build a copy. The picture is the base to create the scene. Every part of the building will get another appearance. In this way even a small scene can look interesting.
For this building I searched carefully the colours to follow my colour scheme. To refresh your mind, I have put the colour scheme below.
For the choice of the textures I used the scheme as a reference. Most textures
I have started my new vignette. A vignette is smaller than a diorama, with the focus on the main subject. I my case this will be a mechanical horse for my story telling and a Morris Oxford III for the finished vignette.
I’m going to try out some a new weathering approach for my diecast models. But more about that in a later blog entry.
For my vignette a used one of the buildings from the High Street shop fronts from Scalescenes. As usual I started with the road and the footway. Thi
I have finished my Sunday diorama’s and Monday is washing day. So my next diorama has to give an impression of the Monday washing day.
Just a row of back yard with washing lines could do the job.
The other possibility is washing lines crossing the street.
But I wanted use my Austin K8 for a delivery scene. Then I published an entry in the road vehicle group on the RM web. I wanted some information about the NCB electric van of the British Railways. After this I realized the Austin
Writing about a colour palette is one. Designing one is a totally different story. Because I didn’t want to do the try and error method for a diorama I had to do some research first. I used the following approach.
I copied a “picture” from the website of Scalescenes or from another supplier to Publisher. In this case the aged brown brick from Scalescenes.
This is the easy part.
1. For the creation of my colour palette I like to use a 1950’s colour scheme. I have used the B5252
Let’s start with a quote from another RM blogger: “When I see some of the so called Art I become more and more convinced that railway modelling is very much an art form, yet one that we don't explore as much as we should.” Thanks for this one Dad-1. See his article here: http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/blog/608/entry-17901-is-railway-modelling-art/
So now my contribution on this subject. On Facebook sometimes you get surprised with an inspiring post. This time my eye was cached
I have finished the yard of J. Peterson Ltd on Grove Road. For the yard I used the following details: - Portland cement sacks - A spade - Pigments for sand - Fine basalt for aggregate - Some corrugated plates (photo paper)
For the storage of the aggregate and sand I created staithes from brick.
The cement sacks, spade and fine basalt are from Kotol, a German supplier of excellent detail materials in hO. Because I didn’t use any OO gauge detail materials in the yard I found th
I have done some further work on J. Peterson Ltd on Grove Road.
But let me repeat my starting points: - Using my favorite method for design - Balanced colors - Just low relief
For the building I took the garage from Scalescenes using a texture from Clever Models and a self-made sign. I did choice the brick wall from Model Railway Scenery
Brick wall ((Railway Model Scenery)
But making photographs I noticed another problem. The solution was to create the complete workshop. In this
I wanted to keep it simple … My starting points were: - Using my favourite method for design - Balanced colours - Just low relief For this purpose, I asked Scalescenes to provide my a picture of the back of a row of terraced cottages, he uses on his website. He kindly provided me the picture. Many thanks for that. Then I realised I had “a lot” of not used prints. This could be the opportunity to use them. Using my map, I searched for a scene to build. My choice was to build J. Peterson Ltd
Last Sunday I was with my daughter in Amsterdam. She needed some help from me. We also wanted, after finishing our duties, to visit the Stedelijk Museum. For me it was a long time ago. But I have enjoyed it very much, especially the paintings of my favorite Dutch painter Piet Mondriaan. The way creates his balanced basic colored paintings is just great. I saw that a lot of years ago on a drawing exposition in another museum. But this is one of my favorites: Tableau No.1 It gave my also the inspi
The last building is William Fish & Son. The building is based on the T024a Industrial A – Warehouse from Scalescenes. For the roof I used the zinc roof texture from the Scalescenes Garage and for the slated part TX184 = Mixed grey roof slates from Modelrailwayscenery.
When I designed this diorama I wanted to use a large advertising board on this building. To create tis one I used a layered approach. And as I promised I would show you how I did it. You need two advertising boards to real
Making a railway layout or a diorama is actually telling a story. I found an interesting article about this subject, although aimed for writing a short story or a novel. But I have already seen some different approaches passing by on the RM web.
1. VIGNETTE
Typically, a vignette is defined as something that is incomplete, an impressionistic scene that centre’s around one moment, and gives the viewer an image of a person or place.
For my layouts and diorama’s are vignettes. The viewer o
This title might surprise you, but we are going back to Caroline Street to the house of Arthur Page.
No, I don’t want to build an interior into the existing diorama. I needed just the interior for the illustration of my story. In his excellent book “Cottage Modelling for Pendon” Chris Pilton is a good chapter about when you should build an interior. The most important is the room of the interior will be visible for the viewer and mostly the room in which the interior is made has lightin
Mikkel suggested to see if it was possible to publish the story of a diorama in the gallery on the RM web.
After his excellent entry about "The honourable slipper boy" http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/blog/75/entry-17254-the-honourable-slipper-boy-part-3/ it was time to see if his suggestion was workable.
I have my story in Word, but I know that with the help of Publisher I can putting a picture ans a text together. You can then save the individual pages as JPEG-file. Now the pictur
Because of my eye troubles modelling was not good possible, so I did some research on internet about the amount of cars in the 1950’s. As far as I could find out about 1 on the three families had a car at the end of the 1950’s. I decided that for Northall that means that every diorama with three or more buildings/houses should have a car.
Until now I had concentrated me on the British Railways road cars. Only in Bridge Street and Nice street, which are larger diorama’s, I placed a car. I wan
Mikkel said something about presentation of our modelling effort as an answer in my latest blog. I quote the line that made me write this entry: “ The blogs are fine but after a while the stories "disappear" into the depths of the blogosphere, and it would be nice to have them more easily accessible.”
Then I realized that this was also the case with my entries in the card modelling and diorama forum.
After looking at the entries in the card modelling section I saw I lost some information that
Unfortunately, I have an unfocused vision at this moment. This makes it difficult to model on the level I want. So I decided to work on my story. The story is about a regular week of the live of the family Page, living in Caroline Street in Northall. I will use pictures of my diorama’s to illustrate the story.
Sunday 23 August 1959
It’s a cloudy morning when Arthur Page is sitting in front of his late Victorian cottage in Caroline Street. Margaret Gates is telling him she is going
You have already met Arthur Page (47) who lives in Caroline Street, although not properly introduced by me. So here is some more information about him to make him more alive:
Arthur is born in Farthing - Wiltshire. He comes from a railway family. His father was a loco driver who regularly drove a loco along the freight line to Northall Dock. He started as a young led at Northall Goods Depot when he was 16 years old. So he is working for British Railways for more than thirty years.
Arthur trav
The starting point.
For the painting of the figures I started with some research on internet. For my the right colors for clothing are a part of a good time based layout or diorama. Even for the dog I searched for a picture. The figures are painted with Vallejo paint and for the cardigan of the girl I used a color from the Citadel range.
The chair is card build and is from the Furniture kit of Fine Scale Buildings and colored with some paint. The newspaper is also part of this Furni
The starting point.
I built the factory yard wall in the front.
Actually this is just straight forward modelling.
I used the 6’ Industrial Wall and Gates from Railway Model Scenery a starting point. This is really a nice kit with a beautiful old wall texture. The colour of the wall didn’t fit to my industrial building. For the wall I used the same brick texture as for the Printing Works. The templates from this kit were used.
I also decided to use the metal gate from the kit. I think
The starting point.
In the picture above the row was almost finished.
Now I have finished them. Below you can see the final result.
Maybe it is nice to give an overview over the used materials.
Ø Wall textures are printed Hahnemühle William Turner 190 gsm textured Fine Art photo paper. This is 100% cotton. In real the brickwork actually has a nice texture and the color is just great. This is my favourite printing paper for brickwork.
Ø Doors are printed on Hahnemü
The starting point.
Last time I showed you the above picture.
For now a quick progress entry.
First of all I will thank everyone for his comment and positive support.
So I started again. Using the templates from the Scalescenes small cottages. In this way I have only vertical lines.
I added already some drainpipes made from 1,6mm rods from Evergreen and a drainpipe texture from one of the Scalescenes kits. I coloured them brown with a pastel pencil.
I also added an “Anno” sto
The starting point.
Last time I had finished the frame for my row of cottages
It all started reasonable well. I made a new template and printed the texture sheets on my textured photo paper of 190 gr/m. In the beginning everything went well.
At the and I thought It would be handy to use small parts to fill in the openings that where left at the upper part of the windows. And here things went not the way I want it. I knew that with thinner paper it wasn’t a problem to work thi
