With house move plans back to square one, and while illness continues to knock us for six in this house, I thought I’d share a bit more of the background for my plans to remodel ‘The Art Of Compromise’ over the next few months.

When Chris Ford built the layout, his approach was to set creative limitations to work within; firstly to “use the same 12 inch width, but reorganise the plan of buildings for a better fit.” Fine; I’m ok with that - I’ll be doing quite a bit of reorganising of the buildings myself. 

The second of Chris’ self-imposed rules was to "where possible, use only modelling items from the 1978-1988 period." Whilst I can appreciate the appeal and integrity of doing so, that particular creative limitation doesn't really resonate with me, so I would adopt something that I hope at least honours the spirit of Chris' initial build; I’ll be setting the layout in October 1978. 

In addition to the date being a nod to Roy Link’s original plan, it would also allow the layout season to be modelled as autumn, which is something I've wanted to do for a while and a season that doesn't seem to be often represented.

This will bring its own challenges, of course; most of the seasonal modelling supplies available seem to be geared towards spring or summer, and of course, the existing back scene that Howard and Phil carefully fitted to the backboard is definitely not set in autumn. 

Nevertheless, the approach taken by Chris to set creative constraints is an idea I can get behind. I hope that doing so will remove the temptation to keep adding shiny new ideas into the plan, and reduce the chance of ‘scope creep’ stalling my progress with remodelling this layout. 

Thanks as always for dropping by - cheers and bye for now.