Tuesday 24 April 2012

28mm Industrial units

These two industrial units are the first of a series of buildings that are designed to be used for any 20th Century and near future conflict. The final commission will see about a dozen buildings of all sizes so when they are all together they will make quite a sight.
I used three photos as inspiration. These were supplied by the customer to give a feel of what he was looking for.
The last two photos are of the same building but from a different angle. These photos gave me the ideas I needed to help me make the models. They needed to be substantial buildings and made from brick. I liked the multiple stories of the large building along with its tall chimney, roof vents and large entry doors. The white building looked interesting because it was white but I liked the wire running round the outside of the walls as well as the small roofs over a couple of doors.
This is what I came up with:
Both buildings are brick built. I use plastic sheets from South Eastern Fine cast. They make a good range of sheets but importantly they come in big sheets so you don't have to worry about joins as often. They are also made from white plastic which gives you lots of options for painting. The roofs are both corrugated iron sheets. I use Slater's plasticard for this. Their sheets are smaller than the South Eastern Fine cast sheets but I cut them into smaller panels anyway so, in this instance, size doesn't matter.
All the other details come from the railway modelling O gauge ranges. Railway companies are great sources of industrial model details and I strongly recommend you hunt them out.
Once I had built the models (the usual foam board heavily braced and then clad in the plasticard). I painted them. The white building is straight forward with a white base coat, washed in raw umber and then highlighted in white again. The brick coloured building starts with a base of raw sienna. When that is dry I give it a coat of burnt umber (to give it a red shade) followed by a wash of black. In this case I still felt it was a bit light so gave it another wash of burnt umber. The washes give lots of colour and shade variations which make a potentially dull brick wall far more interesting and eye catching. The final coat is a dry brush of deep cream colour. This adds even more variation and lifts all the colour a little.
The roof was painted with a base coat of grey followed by a couple of washes of raw umber and then dry brushed in a couple of lighter shades of grey followed by a final dry brush of cream.
All the other details were painted various colours and then the final touch was the weathering with lots of water and rust marks all over the walls and roof. I generally use raw umber but can also use black if I need a heavier effect.
That is them done. I have a larger factory just about done so will photograph that and try to get some group shots and post that later this week.







Thursday 5 April 2012

Laser Cutting

This is just a quick one.
I find I am often mentioning in these posts that I have used laser cut components. I have not mentioned names as he was not ready to go public. This has now changed and here is his web site:
http://www.andyslater.co.uk
 Andy has helped me enormously with projects. He has been very good at interpreting my scribbles and ideas and turning them into something that works. He is a model maker himself so knows how things need to work. I can't recommend him highly enough.
Here are just a few of the things he has done for me:
the railings in this picture
the Shell logo

the eagle
The whole cable car
 Get in touch with him you you want anything doing. 

Tuesday 3 April 2012

Trostle Farm in 1/30th scale

This commission was one I hoped would materialise for a couple of years. When I last visited the Gettysburg battlefield site I had stopped at the farm and had thought it would be a wonderful building to make. I just hoped I had the opportunity.
The December Toy Soldier show saw me talking to Bob Jones (aka UKreb) and plans were hatched to deliver the farm house at the March show just gone. I was so pleased and couldn't wait to start.
The full how to article will be published in a future edition of the Toy Soldier Collector so I won't go into loads of detail here.
The job started with just the farmhouse

the house just after the battle.
I tried to recreate the house photographed just a few days after the battle in 1863. The house today is bigger with an extension on the far side of the house- as you can see in this photo
Once I had decided the size of it all I had to do was re create it as closely as possible. I used resin windows that I already had and it gave me an opportunity to use some G gauge guttering that I had bought ages ago. It worked very well.

I built the frame of the house from my usual foam board and then used balsa for the wooden cladding. I then decided on white walls and green wooden shutters. That is slightly different to the colour scheme today but looking at the original photo it does suggest the scheme I decided.
Here are a few photos showing work in progress:


As it got closer to being finished Bob and I began discussing how it would be displayed at show. This chat resulted in me making the barn and a wagon shed. The barn still has a cannon ball in it so I decided to make that part of it. It wasn't feasible to make the whole thing as these barns are enormous things. The model is only about 8" deep with a flat back, designed to go at the back of any display.
Here they are finished: To give you an idea of the size- the farmhouse is over 18" long.


Then finally them all together on my stand at the show in March:
I will post more photos once Bob has used his magic with a camera and added figures and a good backdrop.