I finished a model cab office yester-day to use for my aggregate merchant.  It has not endeared me to white-metal kits - the brick-work is decidedly 'un-matching' and I glued one side out of true - but I am ridiculously pleased at how the colours have turned out.  The mortar was painted in acrylic first, all over, and then a sponge dipped in brick-coloured brown no more than caressed over the walls, so as not to paint over the mortar.  This needed to be done a few times, to get a darker and darker shade.  Then one starts the never-ending cycle of painting doors, windows, and sills, re-painting walls that have been dabbed with fittings paint, then re-painting the fittings, then touching up the walls again, until one goes quite doolally and has had enough!

The interior needs to be done, and eventually, I fool myself, I will be able to scratch-build my own from brick-sheet and with a chimney for a coal fire, but overall I am content.

Owing to the lack of a local aggregate merchant's name to steal in the 1972 'Brighton Area' telephone directory, I used the one of a much-loved toy-shop from my childhood instead.  I thought it sounded right, and must decorate the tipper when I find the lettering.  That vehicle's livery is chosen quite at random, of course...