Trip-Titch - 2021 The Cob : the little people

[southern42]

Wow, it has been awhile since I last posted but the decals are now on, the ones on the back of the bus just waiting for a coat of varnish to finish off. It has been a long and winding demanding road whereby patience was sometimes tested to the limit but I got there in the end. Not perfect by any means so rivet counters and armchair critics will have a whale of a time!

 

A few things that slowed me down:

Printing on both white and clear water-slide decal papers.

Waiting for printing ink, various stages of varnishing, and mounted decals to dry before proceeding to the next stage.

Reprinting due to size, wrong type of initial coat of varnish causing ink to run, running out of rear number plates when trying to mount.

Additional searches for and printing of rear decals which was a later decision.

My own incompetencies, lack of experience, and Summer.  

 

The photos.

The body of the bus is not screwed onto the chassis so it may appear a bit skew whiff.

 

   

 

Viewer's side when placed on the Cob.

 

"Be seeing you" on each corner - Left for overtaking others...

 

...Right for those overtaking the bus.

 

Off side which is not seen from the viewing side of the Cob.

I did this side first and decided to make "The Prisoner" decal
smaller for the other side (above). As I said, there is plenty
here to entertain the rivet counter and plenty of room for
improvement on my part. Consolation is that the 1:76 scale
model does not look too bad at normal vision.

 

Next - just enough weathering to make the bus look ready
for the road, finish off the figures and seat them in the bus. 

 

Edited August 22, 2021 by southern42

[southern42]

Something funny was going on here this morning.  After editing the above post to add some more pics, it all went pear-shaped when it came to saving it and I lost it all.  I shall try again but give a more detailed account.

 

Adding the rear number plate.

I first got through about a couple of dozen decals before managing to mount the last one, some not surviving the cutting out stage!

But horror of horrors - the 'white' (grey) text came out rather dark, so I scraped the decal off and started again.

First, I enlarged the image and made the letters transparent using image alpha. Then printed on a white decal sheet rather than clear.  In the process, I also allowed more space between images so that I could have strips at either end to hold rather than at just one end as before. This worked much better.

 

 

Mounting the number plate.

At the second attempt, I dry painted the other sides of the black post with white acrylic to make it easier to see what I was doing! 

 

 

Just a dab of varnish to finish off and I will call it a day!

It has been a worthwhile effort giving me a bit of know how and some confidence to add some decals to some locos. Hopefully, I will make a better job of it, too!

 

Photos to follow when I add the figures.

 

 

 

 

Edited August 23, 2021 by southern42
Repeated words!

[southern42]

On 23/05/2021 at 18:27, southern42 said:

Snip...

 

What I fancy doing is... paint the lower half white, and the top half with yellow and white stripes, with matching stripes on the seats, in keeping with the Mini Moke.  Any thoughts on that?

 

 

Polly

 

 

 

 

Well, that was a few months ago.  This afternoon, I suddenly had the idea to get the masking tape out and measure up for some painted yellow stripes but I used the tape to make the stripes instead. Simple, straightforward and no messing!  The roof of the bus will remain white as with the bodywork on the Mini Moke.  I could put a penyfarthing on top - I have not ruled that one out...yet!  You could recognise it from above, then, if looking down from a bridge over the road, for instance!

 

    

 

So that the figures do not pull off the tape, I was thinking about coating the seats with varnish.  I will have to do a test to make sure the varnish does not cause the tape to come unstuck. I have matt which has various cautions attached to it and a gloss water-based one. I will try them both.

 

 

Edited August 29, 2021 by southern42

[southern42]

Two jobs for the price of one.

While making up my mind whether to varnish the seats or not, I started to do some colour swatches for the carpeting around the seats and gave into my feelings that putting some yellow edging on the narrow centre seat should be applied. This was going to be easy - if it all went wrong, the masking tape is easy enough to pull off again but no need. My feelings were right. I say easy - I, thankfully, had some 1mm masking tape which followed the upholstery markings on the seats, as did the 2mm tape.

 

I am not decided on the final colour for the carpeting - suggestions or online examples welcome. I shall have to do a larger strip to cut up for the whole bus and see what it looks like then. I may be surprised.

 

 

 

Showing seat mouldings.

Amazing really as it is barely noticeable without side lighting,
and this is outside the bus!
 And no, I am not going to 'paint' it in.  

 

[southern42]

Well, I eventually made my mind up as to what colour to have the carpeting.

I was a bit dubious about using more yellow so I used my colour swatch as a first test. It was not long after cutting the pieces to shape that I decided the carpeting had to be yellow - a monochromatic base for the varied colours of the passengers.

 

  

 

The passengers need to be glued in so I can be sure they will not fall off their seats at anytime. I do not want to have to keeping taking the bus apart to fit them back in again. I found one (important) little fella, who came off Camel Quay while setting up at an exhibition, upside down in one of the trees but not until we got home!*

 

Summer weather deteriorating now so, with a bit of luck, I will get more modelling done rather than doing other things outdoors. I am not finished yet!

 

Thanks for popping in and your ratings. It certainly helps to keep up momentum.

 

P.S. I have just remembered - it was after buying a replacement but fortunately before I re-painted it! I am thinking about using the replacement on one of the other two dioramas - influenced by this woodland scene and my attempt at drawing with coloured pencils.

 

 

 

Edited September 11, 2021 by southern42
To add P.S.