Saturday, June 29, 2013

Dorfschmiede done

Alte Dorfschmiede in the perspective as it will be seen by most people visiting the layout.
Today I finished up the blacksmith house (Dorfschmiede), including some weathering and installation of lights. As usual I used Pollyscale paints and Bragdon powders to give the house a bit of personality and help with removing plastic sheen and weathering.

After some more consideration, I didn't install additional outside lights, since there will be street lights around the house. I also realized that the miniature lights I do have are either oversized, or their shape looks funny on a house like this.

The work shop with the big hammer is visible.
The lighting arrangement in this kit creates some really nice effect with the open shop doors.
 
At night
The "rear" of the house (well, really it's the front door...) is rather bland and will face towards the market square. I do need to spend a little bit more effort on hiding the gap above the front door, while keeping the upper part of the house removable for maintenance.


Friday, June 28, 2013

More experiments in Emsingen town

Last night I continued working on Faller's "Dorfschmiede" (1903961, black smith). The kit is a bit fidgety, and has more small parts than I expected. Some filing, filling, pushing and shoving is needed to make everything fit neatly, though the parts fit much better than Vollmer's "Alte Feuerwehrwache". Can't really blame them. There are 20 years or so between those two kits.


Either way, at the end of the evening I put the half-finished building into the town arrangement for Emsingen. Works quite nicely.


Here's an overview shot. The town of Emsingen develops to the left. The old city center is in the middle of the photo. I'm planning to add a market square with a small fountain in front of the city call. With some selective compression, to the right the town peters out towards the forest. I may, or may not, keep the bungalow on the far right. Some rich guy plastered his family home on the edge of town ... or, I'll put a small barn and/or an apple orchard there instead.


On to finishing up the black smith house ...

Wednesday, June 26, 2013

Monday, June 17, 2013

Die Alte Hammerschmiede


"Die Alte Hammerschmiede" is a fun little kit from one of Faller's low-end "let's move stuff on Christmas at Aldi" combination boxes. Nevertheless, there are some neat models in those boxes, and the others make a good base for kit-bashing.
At some point Faller sold this with a mini-motor to animate the hammer. I thought about doing that, too, but then skipped on it. I will add some extra lights though.

Sunday, June 02, 2013

A recent two evening project

Putting together one of Vollmer's Bahnhofstrasse kits. It's a neat little kit, and fits quite nicely in Emsingen.


The original plastic kit is painted with Pollyscale colors, and got a dusting of patina with Bragdon powder paint. I typically paint everything on the sprues in one evening, and put it together the second evening. There's usually some touch-up work, that might spill over to the next day.

Saturday, June 01, 2013

Hanging out trackside


I used the opportunity on the way to the airport to hang out a bit at Sand Creek where the BNSF and UP mainlines cross at grade. I was hoping for a nice shot of a train crossing the diamonds, but the crossing is located right under a freeway bridge and aside from being not photogenic, it's also very hard to see without getting on railroad property or climbing the freeway embankment.

Instead, I went for this shot looking south towards the huge (and quite smelly) refinery. The photo was taken while recording an HD video. Given that it's basically an HD still, it's not too shabby, but it would have looked really nice at full resolution.