big T Posted February 23, 2017 Share Posted February 23, 2017 I agree with Marcus, The bridge is great, and if my platforms look like yours I'd be a happy chappy. Trev Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted February 23, 2017 Share Posted February 23, 2017 I think you know damn well how good your modelling is, and you're just showing off to us lesser mortals... Only joking... Everything looks more than good to me. You really are way too hard on yourself! Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Iron Horse Posted February 23, 2017 Share Posted February 23, 2017 I love that last picture Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Gold Revolution Mike B Posted February 23, 2017 Author RMweb Gold Share Posted February 23, 2017 I love that last picture I thought you might Adie......I'll take another one with a few more coaches on it 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Gold Revolution Mike B Posted February 23, 2017 Author RMweb Gold Share Posted February 23, 2017 I think you know damn well how good your modelling is, and you're just showing off to us lesser mortals... Only joking... Everything looks more than good to me. You really are way too hard on yourself! You forget I've seen a few of your creations before Pete so if I can match your standard I'll be over the moon. I think I've learnt a lot of things by reading through Iain (Robinson) and Allan's (Downes) blogs / websites / RMWeb posts because they both use lots of methods to create things that a lot of people would never think of using. I know what the trains look like having spent most of my 50 years jumping up and down pointing and screaming at them wherever I went but it's trying to get the surroundings and environment right that makes a lot of difference. Personally, I think it's quite hard to model modern image and get it to look the part and I think Croydon North Street demonstrates how important the scenery etc is to really making the trains look real. It's the translating of ideas and images in my head to how to model them that's holding me back. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted February 23, 2017 Share Posted February 23, 2017 (edited) It's the translating of ideas and images in my head to how to model them that's holding me back. You've hit the nail on the head there. The first time I had to scrap something that didn't work out, it was a crushing blow to self-confidence, if I'm honest. For too long, my attitude was "that'll do". All of a sudden I realised that wasn't good enough but what was good enough was really hard to achieve. I still work on a 50/50 success/failure rate and an awful lot ends up in the bin and has to be re-done, I just don't dwell on it. We're definitely our own harshest critics. For me, urban is good. All those straight lines, concrete and grime seems a lot easier (to me) to create than rolling fields and farmyards. I thought I'd "nailed" concrete until seeing the concrete hardstandings that Marcus did on Peak Dale Wood. The bar suddenly got higher. Pushing yourself to improve things is healthy but only as long as it remains fun! Edit: BTW, Croydon North Street was the first proper model I ever saw through to completion and Darren knows it was a rush job, taking about 4 months. I think I got lucky with that one. Everything just seemed to fall into place and work first time. Subsequent projects stalled/failed, and I've struggled to match Croydon since, tbh. Edited February 23, 2017 by Pete 75C Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
DJTrains Posted February 23, 2017 Share Posted February 23, 2017 Totally agree with Pete's comments above. It's very hard when you are looking to improve on what's already been done, and being over critical of your own work all the way through. We'd all love to buy stuff off the shelf and plonk it down, but it will always either look exactly like that (and like everyone else's), or won't have the finer touches or the right feel for the location. To be honest when I saw your first pics of the putty covering on the bridge I though it looked god-awful and that you'd be binning it eventually. BUT you had the balls to stick with it and the end result is amazing - and I'm really pleased to eat my own words. It's also very easy to have the 'that will do' or 'I'll do it better next time' attitude, especially if you've committed many hours to a project, but it's the strength to take a breath, and to tell yourself "No, I can do this better" and start over, that will set you above the rest and make your work really stand out. Keep it up mate. I'll be proud to stand behind that layout at any show. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Gold Revolution Mike B Posted February 23, 2017 Author RMweb Gold Share Posted February 23, 2017 Totally agree with Pete's comments above. It's very hard when you are looking to improve on what's already been done, and being over critical of your own work all the way through. We'd all love to buy stuff off the shelf and plonk it down, but it will always either look exactly like that (and like everyone else's), or won't have the finer touches or the right feel for the location. To be honest when I saw your first pics of the putty covering on the bridge I though it looked god-awful and that you'd be binning it eventually. BUT you had the balls to stick with it and the end result is amazing - and I'm really pleased to eat my own words. It's also very easy to have the 'that will do' or 'I'll do it better next time' attitude, especially if you've committed many hours to a project, but it's the strength to take a breath, and to tell yourself "No, I can do this better" and start over, that will set you above the rest and make your work really stand out. Keep it up mate. I'll be proud to stand behind that layout at any show. Cheers Dave.....you won't when the trains start derailling everywhere! Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
d winpenny Posted February 23, 2017 Share Posted February 23, 2017 Scenery is coming along nicely David Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Gold Revolution Mike B Posted February 23, 2017 Author RMweb Gold Share Posted February 23, 2017 (edited) I'm sincerely taken back by all of the kind comments - especially as this all started out from speaking to Ian Blackall who took the time to explain how he built Tidworth in easy to understand words. I never set out to build a masterpiece, it was just an experiment to see what would happen if I took a load of stuff that was available over the counter and stuck it down on a few sheets of plywood......unfortunately (as most of the people know that are following this thread) it hasn't really gone to plan! I found that it was near on impossible to make some of the RTR and readily available kits do what I wanted and they just didn't look the right size, shape or didn't even resemble the real thing so I had no choice but to modify or scratch build stuff with no real idea of how to do it. I've been going around 8 months now and I'm not even halfway through but I can honestly say that I've learned so much from asking people's advice and completely messing stuff up.....although nothing's ended up in the bin yet......oh hang on, the AWS ramps have! The best advice I could give anyone reading through this thread is - never be afraid to ask people how they've done something (unless they've murdered someone) because every day, I've learnt something new. Edited February 23, 2017 by scoobyra 9 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Premium James Makin Posted February 23, 2017 RMweb Premium Share Posted February 23, 2017 Looking amazing Mike!! Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
shanks522 Posted February 24, 2017 Share Posted February 24, 2017 Very impressive modelling! Love the last photo! Graham. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
danstercivicman Posted February 24, 2017 Share Posted February 24, 2017 The layout looks great, good bsllasting and track work Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Gold Revolution Mike B Posted February 27, 2017 Author RMweb Gold Share Posted February 27, 2017 Time for another messy update as I've been trying to get stuff back on schedule for the first exhibition in October. The main bulk of the landscape on the tunnel board is 80% complete and hopefully by next weekend, I'll be able to try out some ground cover - now I've never used static grass before so this will be interesting to say the least. I'm sure I can't make any worse mistakes than any of the previous ones! (famous last words) I've rebuilt the tunnel portal with the correct brick this time (another one of those 'do it twice' jobs) and I've also got the track ballasted which will allow me to finally fix the bridge down (once I've finished of the stonework) and finish off the profile of the ground around it. So in summary, lots of things started......nothing finished......but at least it's making me feel like I'm moving forwards. The pictures below give a great indication of everything in progress (ignore the mess). A very rough (literally) version of Somerton Tunnel as best as I could make out from various online pictures and images - I still need to know what's on the stone in the middle panel, so if anyone has a picture, or happens to know, I'll be very grateful! This is what it looks like in situ. It's not the final colour but it it looks quite imposing. Just the rock faces to sort out for the cutting and it'll start to take more shape. Services severely disrupted by flooding ........ ...and finally... not quite finished but starting to come together. 14 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Iron Horse Posted February 27, 2017 Share Posted February 27, 2017 You love leaving us with a final cracking picture don't you??? Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
d winpenny Posted February 27, 2017 Share Posted February 27, 2017 More brilliant work David Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
MartynJPearson Posted March 1, 2017 Share Posted March 1, 2017 Just had a read through and I love the attention to detail - the trackwork and platform surfaces are so convincing. I'd love to know how you get your sleepers looking so like concrete. I'm using Peco concrete track whose colour I would put closer to nasal discharge than concrete! Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Gold Revolution Mike B Posted March 1, 2017 Author RMweb Gold Share Posted March 1, 2017 Just had a read through and I love the attention to detail - the trackwork and platform surfaces are so convincing. I'd love to know how you get your sleepers looking so like concrete. I'm using Peco concrete track whose colour I would put closer to nasal discharge than concrete! Hi Martyn I'm sure it says somewhere in the thread but it's just a random application of paint. The colours I've used are burnt umber, burnt sienna, light grey, dark grey, black and a mustard colour. I gave the whole lot a wash made up of the burnt umber and light grey (literally sploshing it on) and then just dry brushed every other colour on until it looked right. Hope that helps. Mike Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Gold Revolution Mike B Posted March 2, 2017 Author RMweb Gold Share Posted March 2, 2017 (edited) As mentioned in a previous post, I needed to make some rock faces for the (very) steep cutting leading to the tunnel so I had a look through some other threads, and did the Google / YouTube searches etc and armed with suitable info, set about making some rock faces. Given that I'd already built the terrain, the filler over celotex method was out of the question but after watching a couple of videos (railway modelling ones!!) and thinking....this'll be a piece of cake, I got some plaster of paris from my mate and away I went. Oh dear! I didn't realise the plaster would still be damp on the inside even though it was like concrete on the outside (and almost impossible to carve) resulting in another fine mess that even Stan Laurel would've been proud of getting in to! Jeez, why do I make everything so difficult? After spending half an hour clearing up the plaster, and another hour pasting brown paper and PVA over the resultant mess, I had a brainwave. Before using the brown paper, I'd used some white paper towels and they'd rippled up - a bit like carved rock so that lead to something else...... Toilet Roll!!!!! Ok, let's get the jokes out the way now...that's a crap idea, it'll look s..t, etc etc because this is the result so far... This was done by rolling up single sheets of toilet roll and soaking them in PVA with a spray bottle. Once they're damp, they can be molded in to all sorts of shapes with blast and strata lines and look quite like..er....rocks! I'll add another layer which can be made almost horizontal and hopefully once I've added the vegetation on the top, it should, fingers crossed. look the part. Wish me luck Edited March 6, 2017 by scoobyra 9 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Premium Temeraire Posted March 2, 2017 RMweb Premium Share Posted March 2, 2017 One sheet at a time! You've got far too much time on your hands mate. Looks good so far and will be even better once you've painted it six or seven times! 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Gold Revolution Mike B Posted March 6, 2017 Author RMweb Gold Share Posted March 6, 2017 One sheet at a time! You've got far too much time on your hands mate. Looks good so far and will be even better once you've painted it six or seven times! Yeah, one sheet.......sometimes two, depends on what I've eaten the day before..... Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Gold Revolution Mike B Posted March 8, 2017 Author RMweb Gold Share Posted March 8, 2017 (edited) Well my childish personality just couldn't resist this picture........Stobart Rail has a new meaning! On a more serious note, things are moving on a bit with the tunnel board. Obviously it's still early days but it's always nice for people to see just how rough the modelling can be before it gets tidied up. There's going to be a lot of a lot of trees and bushes on this board that will cover most of the infrastructure so I could afford to be a little less perfect with how I built stuff and hopefully, nobody will see that I've cut a few corners. The only thing that's worrying me is this - with the layout being 20 feet long, an HST takes up two boards, and if it's travelling at 90 mph (scale speed of course), then people aren't really going to see much of the trains!! Edited March 8, 2017 by scoobyra 12 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
treggyman Posted March 8, 2017 Share Posted March 8, 2017 Hi You could have lots of Permanent Way men in orange overalls working on some problem or other which has meant an enforced local speed restriction to slow the trains down...... Cheers Bill 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Gold Revolution Mike B Posted March 8, 2017 Author RMweb Gold Share Posted March 8, 2017 Hi You could have lots of Permanent Way men in orange overalls working on some problem or other which has meant an enforced local speed restriction to slow the trains down...... Cheers Bill Already thought of that one Bill - glad to see great mind think alike. 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
birch1 Posted March 9, 2017 Share Posted March 9, 2017 You cutting corners? I never thought I would see that after the lights fiasco! Anyway, great job so far, watching with interest! 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
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