Job's Modelling

Lovely article with a lot of background informatiom. Although not my thing for modeling I love to read about the architectural background of buildings. Looking forward to the stable you are going to model. kind regards, Job

Your pictures say more than a lot of words. A great layout with lovely time based details.

I like your micro layout. Great atmosphere and nice CARD modeling.

As a former FREMO member I like "real" traffic on a model railway. Shunting in a station can be a great challenge.

Thanks for pointing my to this book. I'll keep it in mind. Could be a nice birthday present.

I'm glad the PDF is useful to you, Mikkel Playing children in a street is really for the 1950’s and early 1960’s. Now a days in the Netherlands most children don’t play in the street. A lot of children are playing inside using digital plays. And thanks for the compliment about the little signals.

Thanks, Barry. I believe that the most important reason is, that shop owners have more freedom in choose the colour and font. In the 1950’s most shop sign were hand painted and made. Now we have modern materials and techniques. And a black and white picture has a totally different atmosphere than a black and white picture. And don’t forget in the 1950’s pictures were developed in the photographers own dark room. For that reason I like black and white pictures, also from modern photographers. Now we use digital pictures which can be changed in any way om the computer.

Shops I like those old English shops. And a lot of nice pictures can be found on the internet. There is also a lot of information to find to create a believable shop front. Untill now I have created several shops for my Northall diorama’s. all with a different character. This was my second shop. Built for my Bridge Street project. Just using shop signs from Scalescenes. And one of my favourite scenes. The girl with the red dress. In this case a created the shop sign my self using Publisher. The colors for the shop sign and the fonts were a random choice. Shop design guide To create time based shops I did a lot of research on the internet and wrote my own shop design guide. This guide I will use in the future to create my shops. I have added the guide as PDF to this entry. I hope it will be useful. All fonts mentioned in the guide are to be downloaded free from the internet. Shop front design guide.pdf Creating a shop sign: I have mentioned the use of Publisher several times. I will try to explain how I create my shop signs. A start in Publisher with creating a text boxes with the right size. Then I decide in what time the shop was started. In this case in the 1950’s. So I adopted Optima as font. Then I look for a colour that fits with the shop that I want to build. Then you copy the upper textbox and drag it to another place. The smaller text box is also copied and dragged to the replaced upper box to create the definite sign. Then I save the Publisher file as an JPEG file. In my windows photo editor I cut out the final shop sign. The sign is than mostly out of size if you print it directly. So I copy and paste the sign to Word and if necessary I resize the sign. A.G.Smith This shop sign I will use on my first O scale vignette. Alfred George Smith carefully manage the grocery shop since 1956, providing good customer service and a wide variety of groceries to cover the needs of his costumers. Lucy Page is one of his regular customers. As usual comments asn suggestion are welcome. Kind regards, Job

First something about politics: “That men do not learn very much from the lessons of history is the most important of all the lessons that history has to teach.” ― Aldous Huxley, Collected Essays So unfortunately people are reacting in the same way on risks as in the past. And about the modeling I can only say: I still enjoy reading your entries. Nice explenation and usefull pictures. About the search for color. I would advice the detective force of Scotland Yard in Victorian times, for example Nathaniel Druscovich and Inspector John Meiklejohn. I believe James Bond is a great secret agent, but that his knowledge about paint less adequate.

The scene looks indeed less urban this way. I like the changes. Looking forward to your next entry.

I like the suggestion. Tracks and weeds.

This is one of mu favourite layouts.

I think you have done a good job here. I like to see road vehicles in a fitting environment.

Thanks, Mikkel. Both pictures have the same setting. But the Morris Oxford was planned for the final diorama. The mechanical horse will be used is in other diorama's too. I agree with you that we can learn a lot from military modellers painting our models.

Thanks for the compliment. I will try to keep up my standard. I'm working to get my working environment more suitable for my eye problems.

Information A couple of months ago, I was searching the internet for information about painting a car. My OO-scale diecast models of course don’t need to paint completely. On the website of AK-interactive, I found some interesting information. I can advise everyone to download their catalogue: http://ak-interactive.com/v2/downloads-2/catalogue/ . It contains a lot of useful information. I also bought Tracks & wheels from AK-interactive. Although written for military modellers, it also contains useful for painting / weathering my diecast models. I bought their set for painting reacks and wheels. Painting I used their painting advice: Use satin or gloss varnish on civil vehicle Use a varnish before using a wash Use different types of varnish on a model (for instance wheels) So I gave my models a coat of satin varnish. For the underside of the cars and the wheels I used a matt varnish. For the wheel I used their description for wheels used in dry areas. Morris Oxford III The Morris Oxford III was the easiest one. I had to do the weathering of the wheels and painting the body with a satin varnish. The car belongs to Charles Holland, an estate agent with an office in Market Street. He is helping Mr. Sing Lee to found a new building for his Laundry. Mechanical Horse The mechanical horse I found more difficult to paint. I followed the same way of working as by the Morris. For the planks, I also used some advice I found in another AK booklet. But in this case I had to use other paints as they advised. At this moment, I must make careful choices spending my money. I have to do some investments for my visual problems. That has priority at this moment. I will make some loading at a later point. Advice, information or comments are welcome. Kind regards, Job

For the sanding of photographic paper, I use a large fine glass nail file. For my purposes I have just to “remove” the top of the paper. I lay my file flat over the paper and very gently rub over the surface. Another point of consideration is that not all photographic papers are build up the same and act the same.

A good (modelling) 2017. Looking forward to your progress

Thanks for the complement. I was also surprised by my street name sign. Just a good photographic paper, some soft sanding along the edges and some pastels can give this result. The painting of cars are a different subject and I found a good guidance for painting them. But that is for a next entry. I like the way Fantasy fans create maps, villages, stories behind plays, characters and so on. Just a view railway lay-outs have a similar approach. Farthing is one of them.

Modelling I still wait for the right modelling solution for my eye problems. But this also give me the opportunity to do some research to create my fictive Northall. I hope you also will enjoy reading about my journey in creating Northall. Creating a believable town. Working on my diorama’s I have always trouble to keep things together to a consistent overall picture. So I looked at our main source for information and found a usable template on one of the fantasy sides. See: https://randyellefson.wordpress.com/2013/09/23/creating-a-fantasy-city-part-2/ The template asked to fill in some basic information such as: Identification – where is our town known for. It also asked for a slogan. I think I have found the right one for Northall: (see below the picture) Arte et industria (Latin: By art and industry) The picture above is from Nice Street. Nice Street is shown in outline on the 1867 O.S. No houses had yet been built. Named after the builder George Nice from London. Famous places: Northall has now a Pomfret Manor and a Griffin House. The Griffin house has is own local mystery history. A minimal description of places near Northall. Industry / products /religion / famous people. Etc. Street names With every diorama, I should find a new street name. Mostly the street names were related to the diorama I was building. This would not give a consistent overall picture. I found two interesting articles about street names: Street names were chosen by using the names of locally and national well-known people, regional place names, names of houses and the use of names related to the Royal family. A article with descriptions of street names, when the streets were build and the meaning of the street name used. Both gave me the opportunity to create my own articles for Northall. In this way I could create a believable set ot street names. Although not yet permanent it gives a good start for choosing the right names. Here are two examples for the already build Northall streets. BRIDGE STREET So-called on the 1859 O.S. The name is a reminder to the railway bridges across the street, railway freight line and the canalized river North. OVAL ROAD Part of the Northall development commenced in 1853. The road is named after Mr Oval, the 4th Earl’s of Northall gardener and the designer of the Grivin House Garden. Alphabetical index The use of an alphabetical index, which I described earlier, is working very well for me. I have a index on my desk top but I also have one one paper. Both are working very well together. In this way, it is easy to storage your information and find it quickly if you need it. Progress Progress goes slowly. But I hope to finish the painting of my vehicles for Queen Street next week. All suggestions and additional information is welcome. Wishing you all a healthy and good (modelling) 2017. Kind regards, Job

Although it gives another dimension and a good perspectiv, I personally liked your goods depot as a separate diorama. I als liked the idea of building a larger station in separate smaller diorama’s (eating the elephant). A back ground gives a lot of depth, but personally I had chosen the back of a row of Victorian cottages or maybe even better http://www.warwickshirerailways.com/lms/lnwrf127a.htm showing a boundary wall of a factory. The yard also could provide coal merchants to serve the Farthing with coal. Looking forward to your choices and progress.

Wish you all the best for 2017 and a lot of success. Modeling is the escape route from your daily troubles when you do it mindfully. It works for me this way.