ianLMS

South Paw I see! all the gifted folks seem to be left handed - still working on finding out what my gift is though!!!! I am a lighting engineer for The Pure Floyd Show, a Pink Floyd tribute band with 3 exceptional guitar players!!! looking forward to playing this Saturday and hearing some of those wonderful Gilmour solo's!!!!

I have just painted the same figures from AC Stadden. Superb quality 4mm figures, but my attempt at painting them is not a patch on yours!

Alternatively, I am just waiting to place them as soon as I build the Ancorton Coal Cart in my box of "things-to-do".

Lunchtime at The Duchess, then went drink driving in the coal cart and misplaced it. Horse got loose and ran back into the yard for dinner and knocked the first guy over. His mate fell over laughing at his colleagues misfortune straight into a pile of horse manure. Oh the good ole days!

Beautifully done! How was the ivy made?

Good idea. I seem to remember my Nan chewing the end to make a fine applicator for glue when she used to build models of ships etc. Thanks for reminding me of that. Ian

Looking very good there. Feeling right at home! very impressed with the different styles all fitting nicely together to look just like a real street in Norfolk!

Here are some pics of the cottage front gardens and coal yard I have been working on.

Here is my first attempt at bringing the AC Stadden figures to life. I'm ok with the results, but still need work. Facial details were so difficult to do. Even the smallest of brush was too big, and resorted to using a pin head with mixed results. The figures are truly the best, just my painting skills that let them down!

I think they should try and engage in 3mm/ft (TT) R-T-R loco's, track, rolling stock and scenic items and lead the way!!! Resurrect it from the ashes and with proper managed marketing, I think they would be very successful. I think there is a large gap in the market here and would tempt many people away from fiddly N/2mm and common OO/4mm, HO/3.5mm etc and all the anomalies that go with it. If there were R-T-R loco's in that scale with decent correct scale track to go with it, I'd be all over it!

I cannot believe this work has not been picked up by any of the modeling press yet. I keep seeing the same layouts written about time and time again in different modeling magazines, yet masterpieces like this get missed completely. Come on RM, BRM, Hornby, MR and all those other Monthly's, lets see something new like this! A Cornflake packet "duchess" with incredible detail. I would love to have one of these in a glass case on my shelf - I doubt I could ever afford to buy one or get one commissioned mind you., seeing how much work and time is involved

I thought that when I researched. It appeared that B&W Fresian's weren't in the UK before WW2, and a more common dairy/beef cow was the Shorthorn variety (brown, brown/white etc). All very complicated this accuracy business, but great fun researching the facts. I am in the middle of painting the AC Stadden figures and just hoping they come out ok. Cho0sing colours is difficult though as colour photo's of the 1930's are rare. I assume general railway workers wore grey's/dark blue's/black's, with white shirts and brown or black boots/shoes.

The exquisite AC Staddon Edwardian Workmen figures have arrived. I am so impressed with the quality of the casting and the features especially with the facial detail. I just hope I can do them justice when I paint them! 10 figures for £10 is very good value indeed. www.acstadden.co.uk. no connection to the vendor blah, blah, blah. Recommended by the extremely helpful "Edwardian" on this here forum!

Here are a couple of pictures showing my static grass. The first picture is in the village and shows 3mm and 4mm. The back right of the picture is the start of the hill covered in just standard scatter material. The second shot shows the 4mm grass and it slightly sticking out at an angle. Not drastic and in my humble opinion, quite realistic.

I am still a great fan of static grass. Adds so much realism especially in areas close to the viewers. Using good quality grass from different vendors and blending them gives the best result. I layer mine, 2mm, 3mm, 4mm and 10mm in places to give a more natural uneven cover. I hide the hedgehog bits with various scatters such as Coarse, Underbrush and bushes from woodland scenics. I highly recommend trying it out. I wasn't convinced until I built my static grass applicator. I was too skeptical to shell out £100 straight off.

Here are a couple of pictures of the re-painted Merit cows. Again, not overly happy with the result but great practice and will be fine for the cattle dock area.

Mine stood at between 45 and 90 degree angles on the slope no matter where I place the applicator. During the drying process, I just lightly "combed" the grass into a more vertical position, but its quite fiddly. bumps look like a hedgehog with grass coming out at every angle!

Well, had a busy weekend and decided to start going through my "things-to-do/kits" box and came across some Merit cows, a herdsman and a packet of "Wills Farmyard Junk". Feeling brave, I decided to have a go at re-painting them. I thought this would be a good exercise before attempting to paint the exquisite Staddon figures finding their way to me right now in the post! I cleaned off the flashing from all the parts, washed them and primed them with some grey primer. I used Acrylic paints throughout, mainly from Tamiya but mixed with Acrylic paint tubes from "The Works". The original Merit cows were Black & White. The white plastic looked terrible and the black was just blobs of paint. The ears were joined to the horns so were not great examples to start with. I decided I wanted brown cows and felt they would blend in better into the layout. Not sure what the best colour of cow is to represent 1930's Pennines area though. I used two shades of brown mixed with a little red as a base coat, then dry brushed some patches of Ochre Yellow, followed by patches of white and white for the eyes. I finished off with black for the snout and eyes and then a very thin black wash all over. I am ok with the results, but the snout, eyes etc just do not look right. The herdsman was originally painted in blue and I wanted more toned down colours so painted them a brown/ochre colour, with brown trousers and black boots. The face has hardly any recognizable features so was extremely difficult to put on any paint that would distinguish his eyes, nose and mouth. Again I applied a black wash to finish with but I'm not overly happy with the results The Farmyard Junk kit from Wills is white metal and had everything including an old plough (not really used in the Pennines area I am guessing), barrels, sacks, buckets, ladders, cart wheels, broom, pitch fork, milk churns and beer barrels. After cleaning the flash off, washing them and priming them, I painted them with acrylics using various colours and shades from my paint box. I used "Natural Steel" enamel paint for the metallic parts. Again, I gave everything a black wash to finish with. Overall I am quite happy with the results. The exercise proved how difficult painting tiny figures is going to be, especially picking out detail such as eyes, nose, mouth, expressions etc. I know the Staddon figures are of superior detail so that should help, but it is still going to be a daunting exercise. I will upload some pictures tomorrow to show you the results of my first attempt! Ian