PJBambrick

This is an old one just changed to sepia. Not perfect by any means but I'll own the blurry station and wobbly signwriting! And everything else as well... By the way Andy, I noticed there were no model photos at all in your gallery, so why don't you take some of your diorama/layout pictures and put them up here? I'm sure everybody is waiting to see what you have been up to lately model wise. Looking forward to some photo realism in your next post then, don't leave it too long.

It's a 7mm scale A4 in garter blue by Tony Reynalds, a true master of the art.

This one came out OK. It's one of my favourites and it runs as good as it looks.

There is as far as I'm concerned! especially with a scene as good as that. See if you can get the weather to look overcast,wild & windy, maybe blow the smoke away directionally? Nowadays there might well be enough fans to have an 'altered image' section, i find it's quite time consuming, but good fun. If I could get a model to do it believably I would, but this will have to do as my best shot instead.

Spectacular setting, wow. Here are some 'old' style ones, the black and white one is a Chris Nevard original.

Phil Gomm brought this ensemble along to Bucks Hill at the weekend.

The first of two our 8 sec passes from different camera positions at Santa Pod Raceway, and a rare glimpse of sunlight during a mainly overcast but dry weekend. The new 15 gallon per minute Enderle fuel pump has done the trick. (Turn up sound volume for effect!) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=227ezzV9k6g Crew view https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J-TA-621YCc My view

I find backscene roads much easier to blend in if they approach the rear panel at a bit of angle. Another good cheat is to have a 'T' junction to re direct the road to a parallel, but they don't usually occur like that on prototype layouts, certainly not in open countryside. Here's quite a realistic study of a light engine at Bucks Hill but the missing smoke and steam give the game away for me!

In case there are any modellers that like old american race cars, here's a recent one of my slingshot dragster on the newly laid Santa Pod raceway near Hinwick. This is the beginning of the pre-race 'burnout' which heats the car up ready for it's 1/4 mile run. The picture is shared from UKDRN facebook, which has a website with movie clips and old pics.

The first pic is one point perspective (single VP), then one point forced 3d (like Jack's) alongside. The second pic is two point 3d relief (Christina Lihan) like the earlier sketch.

No probs, It works for 2D perspective and forced 3D as well. Simpler version for repeating rows attached

The diminishing ratio can be plotted out like this, just projecting a line half way up each subsequent upright between the perspective guidelines.

Mail order a piece of 0.8mm soft ally sheet and gently bend it to the curvature you want.

Hi All... Interesting to read the comments re: Semley landscape, so thanks for the feedback.. it does help me along! The quiet Wiltshire countryside surrounding the station and dairy is presented as closely as possible to its prototypical 1912 appearance, with trees, field boundaries, farms and skyline, purely taken as a research project and deliberately omitting any 'romancing' of the panorama. This approach goes some way to matching the historical accuracy of all Martin's modelling, and so we found ourselves agreeing on this method, sticking to exactly what would have been visible at the time. Personally speaking, the closer to this 'window into the past' subject matter, the more rewarding the outcome becomes, whether it turns out to be just a quiet corner of a southern county, or a scene with windblown Northumbrian fells and crags instead. The creative choice is the model's subject, but after that, (for me anyway), the end result is all about going with the reference. I'll get back to any comments after a 10 day trip abroad...Cheers

Excellent work on this layout, and steady progress too. All my trees are all twisted to shape using the 40mm sq 300A flexible battery cable they use on caravans and boats etc. You can get it in 70mm sq as well, just mail order it in metre lengths on e**y. Once they are configured, I just hold them upside down outdoors and run liquid cyano zap down the trunk, and it flows in by capillary action. When dry, either Treemendus bark on the trunk & lower boughs or PVA & sieved soil paste allows a little variety, with chopped brown chinese wig 'hair' in 3 length stages of 12, 8 & 4mm for the outer twigs (fixed with matt clear lacquer aerosol). Hopefully the attached pic shows the silhouette.

Couldn't agree more, but there's no logic to dictate any level of 'anonymity' when representing the surroundings, only opinion. Enough opinions can join up to establish a bit of a convention, but there's no need for anyone to follow any 'broad brush' approach if they don't agree with it. Including a landscape at the same detail level as the rest of the model can help to blend the whole scene together without any visual discord between foreground and distance. Studying the subject to represent it as a totally realistic extension of the environment allows the reference to decide how the locality should appear to the eye, not somebody else's 'logic'

It's just right, with the same feel and colour palette as the rest of the layout. A sense of distance is now present, especially in the view of the receding fields behind the weighbridge hut. Just a few quiet still clouds now to balance the sky to the landscape.... Looking forward to the Sherton Abbey tower blog entry!

It's looking good, try the 'Generate a Panorama' web resource to get the contours, and combine it with an equivalent scale height view from a period OS map. A set of overlapping photos from the same viewpoint & direction can also help to reduce the dreaded guesswork. It's not about art, just copy from reference on trial sections till you are happy with the realism of the landscape. Same for the sky, choose the look you want, and copy the colours and clouds from ref.

Hi Simon & Allan It's looking fine, with really good scenic observation. I have done some street views and mapping to look at the further environment, and here's a partial contour panorama from the right hand end. The line from Mirfield to Brighouse runs across in the foreground and the middle distance surface behind shows the Colne Valley approaching our viewpoint at the river confluence at the bottom of the Calder Valley. The southbound lines rejoin after the burrowing junction, to follow the gentle wooded river valley south west in the direction of Huddersfield (see pic). As luck would have it, to the left of this point, a nearly parallel disused line also appears below the ridge to the south (see pic), branching off at Mirfield to cross the Huddersfield lines further down the Colne valley between Bradley and Deighton stations, eventually reaching Newtown goods depot. Looking forward to seeing more of this epic!

Great job, love the wooded hillside detail at centre skyline, and variety in middle distance hedgerows. A perfect shadowless scene.

This makes show demos worth the trip. Detail is just a question of time, mixing colours on a palette from reference, stippling the paint quite dry onto natural ground and foliage. Finer brushes for distance and coarser ones for foreground. Separate card layers are much more comfortable to paint at the bench before they are fitted, taking the arm ache problem out! The fenceposts in the bottom left show the layout lighting coming from top right, so does the relief foliage above, and this can also be included in the backscene, with trees, hills and clouds all responding to the same lightfall. Thanks for putting the pics up, they are a pleasure to look at.......Paul

Hi Steffan Sorry for delayed reply. It's the free thinking here and the wish to recreate the complete experience that is interesting. There is always a trade off with a restricted view type show, because you can't run around taking pictures of the scene from all angles .... there's only one view, but it's a good one! With that, the 'raindrops on window' idea sounds great, and so do the other atmospheric effects and props, but bear the natural viewpoint in mind. From a carriage window it's normally quite an oblique one from a seated position. That foreshortening is going to make any diorama perspective difficult to control, so it might be easier to simulate the corridor side where folks could walk past it naturally. A view from a narrower building type window perhaps, with other view blockers to help manage the more difficult angles? Either way, control the viewpoint, then set the far horizon line at eye level like a flat desert as the most important datum for consistency. It controls the surface grid, which then approaches the viewpoint progressively from skyline to full size. Paint or project a sky onto the inside of a horsebox size hemisphere, it's dioramic that way, and closer to how our eyes 'see' the surroundings outdoors. Maybe mock it up half size to to see what works, and just make everything fit the scene where it looks best. There's no modelling scale with this lark, leave it behind and just place the 'trains' into the illusion relative to everything else. Keep the faith, and good luck with the starlings!.....Paul

Hi Steffan This post is full of really creative new effects. I couldn't agree more, and from this outpouring of ideas, I also suspect that from time to time you experience a wish to capture other views and conditions, quite possibly without any railway being present at all. Relatively few see the surroundings before the trains but your instinct on this seems to be more like a landscape artist or a movie set designer, who seek to create a complete illusion. Well made models might well be included in your plan, but again, I'm guessing as only one aspect of a bigger picture. To help in achieving your aim of combining all those sensations into a complete viewing experience, there is no need to separate any model railway from good landscape study and effects. The natural location existed long before the railway traversed it, so why not seek your reference far away from the conventional railway influenced sources. Landscape galleries. historic panoramas and nature photography can all help to inspire you to gather your own specific reference, and these creatives choose their viewpoints freely, rather than having to position themselves with a view over a railway. For interesting skies try searching for galleries featuring 'Victorian romantic landscapes' with De-Breanski, Koekkoek, and George Cole among many other masters. Consider leaving the old fashioned adherence to scale behind you as well, because painters and photographers have no concept of it in their work. They are aware that nobody 'sees' anything as a measured dimension, all things are merely perceived relative to others and distance. As modellers we can also project out from a 2D sky panel, generating progressive layers of 3D landscaping. Sounds are quite easy to add to backscenes using edited mp3 loops with bluetooth triggering. Keep us posted.

Hi Dave, Thanks for the post, great to see it progressing. The proportions look fine and it's good to see the parapet behind, now all you have to do is resist the temptation to put a bus on it! Keep 'em coming.........Paul

Excellent to see this taking shape, lovely flow to it. Just goes to show what a bit of nicer weather can do for a project. Paul