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Comments
George
Thanks much Art.
Appreciate that George. Can't believe how long it took me to put together this little approx. 1 inch square structure!
Thanks Robert
Right Bryan, looking forward to all that kind of detailing once planted and I have a feel for the layout of things.
Thanks Al. The walls, before the wood siding goes on, looks a bit strange with the stark framing. Once everything is on and weathered it softens that look and the subtile framing peeking through creates some interest to the walls.
Here are a couple pictures that I referenced to place this little shed on the diorama. The first is the photo Brett posted earlier on in this thread, and is from the book by Mallory Hope Ferrell...El Dorado Narrow Gauge The Diamond & Caldor Railway. The second is from a web search.
Another topic was a couple issues I had that really slowed me down on the build until I got a handle on how I wanted to proceed. The first of which is the issue of "grass" on my dioramas, or more accurately, the lack of grass! I have struggled in the past as to detailing open ground space. Weeds, bushes and trees can fill some voids but naturally occurring in the real world is lots of various grasses. In study of my reference photos, the areas right near the structures had very little "grass" and was dominated by scattered weeds and clumps of "grass" here and there. But as you traveled further out from the buildings, the grass became more apparent and of course more and larger weeds and bushes. So I felt it was time to give a static grass applicator a go. I purchased a cheap model just to see how it would work...and as expected it didn't work very well. However, I found this to be an actual advantage for my modeling in 1:87 scale. The poor performance caused only a portion of the static grass to actually stand up. This created a natural variation in height leaning towards to low end which looks much better and in scale. Anyway, I created the grassy areas and was pleased with how it turned out.
Second issue was the significant hillside I created on the western side of the diorama where the two story machine shop resides. I did not want just a grassy hillside so I decided to make some rock outcroppings. This is all well and good IF you've mastered making plaster rocks and have them look naturally located, which I have never done! So, fooling around getting that done slowed me down. Both issues are now resolved and I making much better progress. Posted here is the one side of the machine shop showing the result of the grass and rock work. Not a great image but you get the idea.
In the following pictures of my Eureka Springs build, I decided to mirror a small section of the actual Diamond Springs Engine House from the book I described earlier in this thread. There is a wonderfully detailed picture of the front of the engine house on pages 72 and 73. It's not the actual engine house that struck me but the details in the foreground of the structure. back to the issue of layering. Layering can be, and should be, utilized in every aspect of our modeling; weathering details, placing details, scenic work, painting, etc. This short blurp here will be on scenic details.
In this small area I placed several boards and a scarp piece of paper. Note the layering of the items rather than just putting down individual pieces separated from each other. The one main piece has a total of 5 layers!...dirt, red weathered board, small board, paper, longer board. Below is the actual picture from my reference...
Note the layering and the clumps and interrupted bare ground and weeds rather than large expanse of grass.
The next photo is a simple detail consisting of three pieces of wood layered for interest and to depict the reference photo. Note the smaller piece of wood has the end stuck into the small gravel pile rather than just on bare ground.
This picture shows a water line and hose along with a pile of boards. Of course a pile of boards provides natural layering. The critical thing here is that the boards lay naturally. (note the slightly scratched hose with bare metal showing through...have to fix that!...benefit of photographing your work as you go)
This last picture is the reference photo incorporating both previous detail pictures. I had a lot of fun trying to emulate the reference photos in this small section. These small details get lost a bit once the entire diorama is complete, so kind of fun to feature and analyze such a small area...
More later...Ken
Thanks Tom, I'll pull that info. together and send you a PM.
You bet Al...really nice hearing from you.
Thanks much Phil.
Nice hearing that Emery and appreciate the thoughts here.
Hey Steve, nice hearing from you and hope all is well at your end. Have you been modeling as you have been sailing under the radar here! Lol...Do you still have an active web page? Message me the name if so...
Appreciate the support on the hillside work as it was a tense and anxious period in the build!...glad to have it nearly finished.
Terry