Chris Chewter

I've considered and tried most options. Blu-tac shows up in photos and slotting Modelu lamps each time is a faff. It ends up breaking something off. The only solution Its just careful placement of stock for photos and if all else fails, a spot of photo editing.

Todays photo is 4680 heading out of Tetbury. I would blame the guard for the tail lamp being so obviously wrong, but actually its a failure of the hand of god who forgot to turn the coaching stock around the other way for the photo! No worries, photo editing software to the rescue! I needed to edit it anyway, as Combine ZP obviously struggled with the lamp handle.

He could well be checking to see where the firman has gone. We all know he’s drinking tea by the engine shed! In reality, the locos sat on the workbench waiting for me to get around to painting another batch of Modelu loco lamps, but I’ve been having too much fun figure painting!

Similar to yesterdays photo, but the reason why 9735 hasn't departed is clear. Looks like the guard hasn't moved the lamp yet. So what has caught the drivers attention?

I quite liked todays photo stack that I put on Instagram. 9735 ready to depart with the next train to Kemble. Certainly the driver looks keen to get going!

A slightly different view today. How about something track side. That couple are still having their discussion in the car park!

Another photo of 6417, this time sat next to the engine shed whilst the crew have a quick brew.

After a week off making family visits, I've taken another batch of photos. Todays photo is 6417. This isn't my favourite weathered loco, but I think it looks fairly good sat simmering next to the access road. The only changes to the actual image is adding digital clouds where the backscene isn't high enough, and the telegraph pole has been digitally removed, because its removal was easier than trimming around the top of the pole! With a critical eye, it probably needs a slightly tighter crop, but I have another 8 to put through Combine ZP!.

Looking back through the photos, and the trees either side of the road weren’t as mature as they are now. So I’ve raided the seafoam box to make up some trees. Various sprigs have been glue together and the trunk treated with decorators caulk. The armatures are sprayed grey with a light coat of brown. I then decided to add Gaugemaster mid green leaves by spraying the armature with 3m spray glue and sprinkling the leaves over. I think they’ve come out quite nice. Should look good on the layout once the backscenes are fitted.

I was also pleased how the bridge sides came out. These were painted Humbrol 98, then when cured, dark rust weathering powder was applied in downward strokes. This was then highlighted with Humbrol dark earth weathering powder and a final light spray of Matt varnish.

Backscene has arrived, but I’m awaiting a sheet of hardboard as I don’t want a central seam. So instead I decided to create some vegetation. I have a box of less than good bits of seafoam which can be picked apart to create bush armatures. So one of the large sprigs were pulled apart to remove sections like this. Seed pods were knocked off and where possible, black bits knocked off. It was then gentle dipped into PVA glue. I don’t use spray mount or hairspray, as when I tried that, I ended up with a sticky hand! This was then dipped into some Gaugemaster mid green leaf scatter. They are then set aside to dry if you wish. Although, I find the glue helps to bind together some of the sprigs, so I go ahead and dip the stem into PVA and affix to the layout. I need a few rubberised horse hair bushes to create a bit of variation.

Back from a break and family visits. I thought the rear of the car park would look better with a fence line. Fed up with the kids hogging the telly, I set about gluing them in overnight. Now to thread it together. Apparently the backscene arrives today, although the hardboard is being delivered on Monday. No idea where the station name boards are...

The blockwork is engraved onto the surface of the model. Below is a screen shot of the design where red is the cutting lines, and blue shows the engraving lines. Not owning a laser cutter, how this is fed into the machine is a mystery, but it comes out with the blockwork lightly scored onto the building faces.

Tried to fit the backscene today, but things didn’t go to plan. 1/ I mis-ordered the printing, so it was a whopping 2ft too short. 2/ I decided to loosely fit the backscene to see if it looked right, and it’s too dark. So a different field panorama has been selected, lightened and the correct length ordered. I’m thinking of making the rear 6ft backscene a singular piece. I know the backscene isn’t stuck down tightly, but that join is really annoying!

The backscene arrived back from the printers, however at 8ft long, its a bit tricky to photograph in one go. However I thought I'd document how you go about photostitching a backscene together and getting it printed. There is an article in the June 2021 Railway Modeller where the author has stitched together some lovely backscenes, but he uses a different technique to the one I found on the internet. I wanted a view of a field with a distant line of trees. I happen to be in Bicester with some time between appointments, and thought that I could gather the images between other obligations (Anyway, its more useful than sitting in a coffee shop drinking multiple overpriced lattes!) Firstly, iPhone panoramas don't work for this size of printing. (Trust me, I tried!) They just cannot scale up to the size we want, so that's out. We gonna need a bigger camera! So, to gather the image, we require a digital SLR and a tripod. The SLR is mounted to take the photographs in portrait mode. This is to try to gather as much sky as possible because its easier to crop back on sky rather than add it. Also, to prevent anomalies such as bent horizons, we will massively overlap each image. The minimum is 25%, but even that leads to bent horizons, and there is an example of this in a bit. Overlapping by 90% leads to the smoothest stitches, but also the longest processing times! The stitch for Carterton uses 102 images, which is vastly different to the 5 in the Railway Modeller. I'm still experimenting with the best overlap amounts, but generally more is best. To stitch together the images, we will need a bit of computer software to put the photographs together. If you want to pay for software, then you can use Adobe Lightroom, but I use a free to use software called Hugin http://hugin.sourceforge.net/. Why? Because I don't want to be paying for software that I might only be using once. Hugin handily numbers the stages for you in a 1,2,3 approach. When you open up the software, firstly we need to load the images. When they are loaded into the software, they firstly appear all over the place. Don't panic, because the alignment button will sort that out. Click align, and then it becomes an exercise in patience. Of course, if we are stitching 5 images, it won't take as long as the 3 hours 100 images take. Be aware that the software seems to hang at the stage below, but task manager shows that the computer is still processing the images. Just be patient and let it run through, and it suddenly lurches back into life so must be processing in the background. You'll end up with a scene a bit like the image below. This is a field by Shipton-under-Wychwood where I didn't get enough images. Note the horizon falling away to the left. It doesn't do that in reality! If it looks odd, use the projection tab and change it to rectilinear. Try to get as much within the rectangle to maximise the best panorama. Once you're happy with it, click on the assistant tab, and select "3. Create Panorama" and it'll export it for you. I change the format to JPG and quality to 100 and use the bottom option for fusing. You end up with the image as a big JPG image. Any black bits in the rectangle in Hugin come out black. You can then use a graphics software such as GIMP (Which is also free from https://www.gimp.org/) to crop or clone as necessary. However I 've found that getting all the image in the export rectangle leads to the best quality JPG. Note that the printing out on heavyweight matt paper makes the image darker than on the screen, and it appears that the Railway Modeller article came across the same issue, so once you have your panorama, change the brightness to suit your layout. I send mine off to Supersize Print https://www.supersizeprint.co.uk/ because they have a handy option where you can upload your image, tell them the dimensions and give you an on screen preview. Just be aware that there is no test print that you might get from a local supplier After spending £25, You eventually get a roll of paper in a box through the post, and can then affix this to your layout. Another point to think about is it is betting the backscene on first, as fitting the Carterton backscene around the back of the roadway is going to be a pain! You live and learn! I'll update more about how its fitted to Carterton when I get a moment to glue it to the back of the layout.

I was painting up some figures the other day for a few locos that are due to be sold, and I though that people might be interested in the process. These fellas come from the Hardy's Hobbies range, and are bought as a bulk pack to get an economy of scale, although my preferred supplier is Modelu3d where the figures have more detail. The first step is the undercoat. Here I use Halfords matt black. Its really intended for cars, but you get more for your cash. Leave to dry preferably overnight, and them you can move onto the flesh. Why black? Well if you miss a bit, it looks like dirt or a shadow. Also, it does have an impact on the paints being applied over the top, and makes them more subdued. Flesh tones are Tamiya flesh which I think gives the most realistic colour. (Humbrol and Warhammer paints are a bit too pink to my eye) Approximately paint the flesh bits and overlap slightly into other areas. We'll sort out any overpainting in the next stages Leave to cure. I tend to leave it overnight again as the next stage I uses enamels, but if you are continuing to use acrylics, you'll probably be able to move onto the next stage after an hour. Now our figures can start getting dressed. Here we start with anything visible under the clothes eg shirts. As these are enginemen, I use matt Humbrol 89 Middle Blue. Again, you can overlap onto the overclothes, but avoid getting any onto the flesh areas. I tend to use an Artists rigger brush to give a bit more brush control. If you've applied the shirt colour lightly enough, you can probably move onto the next stage fairly swiftly (About 30 mins to an hour) Now the contentious part. What colour are enginemen's blues? Well, this is anywhere between Oxford Blue upwards. Original enginemen's blues weren't colour fast, and were hard wearing, so examples of enginemen wearing light blue overalls are common. My enginemen's jacket is 10 years old now. I've heard stories of enginemen who would bleach their blues to make themselves look more senior and can think of one engineman I know who wears a jacket that's nearly white in colour. Personally, whilst Oxford Blue is correct, to my eye it looks too dark (That's the guys on the right). I prefer Humbrol 96 RAF blue which gives a lighter hue. (That's the guys on the left) The gentleman 5th from the left uses RAF blue for the jacket and Oxford Blue for the trousers if you want a comparison. Don't forget, that most people have hair, or remnants of. Male pattern baldness tends to affect the top and front, so under a hat won't be visible. I tend to use Humbrol 98 Chocolate for dark hair, and Humbrol 225 Middle Stone for blonde hair (I colour matched my daughters to get that right. Don't worry, I just held up the colour chart against her head) Some people have silver grey, but I've not reached that stage to be able to get a colour match. Also, we can now apply details like ties. Here its Humbrol 98 Chocolate to give a brown western region type tie. That can be fiddly, so a very fine 5/0 artists detail brush is used here. Finally, we can paint the greasetop hats. I just use Humbrol matt black 33. If you want, a bit of satin black to the top of the hat to represent the Garbardine material which does have a slight sheen. I personally don't worry unless the figure is leaning out of the cab window. Flat caps are a myriad of greys and browns, so what colour they get painted is up to you. We can also add some more of the Humbrol 255 Middle Stone for shovel shafts. If keen, you can also add some Humbrol 27004 gunmetal to the shovel blades, but to be brutally honest, that effect is generally invisible once your crew is fitted to your loco cab! You'll notice that there are two figure painting techniques I don't do. Firstly is black washing and dry brushing. That looks great from a distance, but I find that a diluted black wash can make your figures look like oil paintings in a photo realistic world. Both of these figures have been black washed, yet the yard figures behind have not. Dry brushing also I don't think is necessary. Why highlight the contours of a uniform, when the contours already exist? There is no dry brushing on the figure below. Also, there is another technique when you leave a black gap between colour areas , but I'm yet to be convinced that it photographs well. Maybe I'll try a few next time and see if I can be converted. Perhaps my technique is a little basic, but I feel that there is no point over complicating things, after all, I've got layouts to create! Sorry for the long post but thought it might be useful to some. Hopefully once Carterton has moved on a few stages, I can take a some more Tetbury photos if everyone is still interested. Have a great bank holiday weekend folks!

The 64xx looks like its going to set back, but there seems to be a delay.

The photographer takes his photo and quickly retreats as the next service train gently drifts around the curve heading for the 25mph post.

Here's a great example why check photos are important. Looks like the track alignment has shifted. Moved it across and re-laid some of the ballast after the photo was taken. Still waiting for the backscene to be delivered.

Took this focus stack the other week, but it had to receive some in-computer processing to overcome the low backscene. Old clouds removed and digital ones added.

I calculated that I had just enough EZ line to complete the station board, so a needle was borrowed from the sewing box and the line was threaded around. The photos show the fencing by the station had a pair of timber rails, so this was made from some platistruct. Its not quite right by the end effect works. Telegraph poles are Ratio, sprayed humbrol dark earth, details picked out, and a light mist of matt black.

Fencing installed. For my sanity, I've only fitted the middle and top rail, especially as once the vegetation is installed, it kind of disappears anyway. I also managed to lay the ballast. Just awaiting for it to dry, which knowing how diluted PVA behaves, may take a few days!

Just in case people are fed up with the photos, I put together a quick video showing how the trees for Tetbury were assembled. The trees are intended for the Carterton project but use a slightly improved Tetbury technique.

Point rodding in. This is probably as neat as I can get it. Ballast and fence wires to go before moving onto greenery.

With the right away, the next train departs Tetbury heading towards Kemble.