Rails on Planet Hex

Back in October I completed my Doctor Who micro-diorama on a hexagonal base measuring 7cm between each set of flat edges in order to fit within my display cabinet. A second base was cut from MDF as a "just in case" and whilst not used at the time it was actively considered for a Christmas scene and a suitable tree was even sourced. 

I had wondered for a while whether such a tiny base could accommodate any meaningful railway scene so in an odd moment or two I created almost the seasonal opposite of what was previously intended!

Construction is very similar to the methods used for the Tardis Scene the track went in first with 5mm foam core board segments either side that were carved to shape and then blended in with modelling clay. Track was weathered and ballasted, before a base surface texture mix was added followed by the same fine sand used on Shifting Sands. This was laid liberally over a layer of PVA, allowing it to overflow into the ballasted areas and then matt medium used to fix the layer for a natural look.

The base will just accommodate a small O9 loco, in this case the recently completed Motor Rail. The grasses are a mixture of Silfor tufts and Peco 10mm grasses, cut from strips as I did not have suitable tufts in stock. A little pruning with nail scissors increased the variety of lengths. All grasses were dry-brushed with a light green/grey acrylic paint which really helps take off any sheen. Finally MIG 'Beach Sand' weathering powder was used over the sand to lighten it and add variety to the colouring.

I'm really pleased with the result, there may be more scenic modelling to come soon...

Colin

 

Doctor Who - 60th Anniversary Diorama

My Doctor Who mini-diorama to celebrate the 60th anniversary of the show is now complete and ready for display. Final preparation involved drilling two holes to accommodate the pins in the Tenth Doctor's feet to allow him to stand looking pensively into the distance.

The TARDIS itself is not fixed in place (otherwise it would struggle to take off…). To help locate it place I set a magnet into the ground and superglued some offcuts of paperclip underneath the floor to match.

Whilst the magnet locates the TARDIS it doesn't hold it too firmly, you can tip the diorama to about 45 degrees before gravity takes over!

The completed scene is now ready to take it's place in my display cabinet and I am considering options for the next project...

Colin

 

Lightbox Diorama Photography

With the lightbox photographic diorama now complete I have taken a few photographs to test its use. As with the previous trials these have used a small extract of the free backscene given away last year with the Railway Modeller. Unlike the last time I have cut a fair amount away from the bottom to give a better horizon line. The hazing effect is purely from the lighting and the matt finish of the paper.

Having reviewed this and other photos I opted to take a further centimetre from the bottom of the backscene to lower it further, and this little adjustment actually made a visual difference to the next images. This is actually the first view I have taken of the railcar and the recently completed trailer.

3/4 images are possible in both directions, the backscene nicely fills the gap to the side where the back of the diorama runs out, the effect just being that the land behind drops away, perhaps for a footpath crossing. The pathway nicely breaks up the foreground of the view.

Side-on views are perhaps the easiest to disguise the size of the diorama, I'm considering alterative pieces of backscene to vary the view from time to time, I might even get away with a seascape...

One of the aims of this simple scheme was to be scale indifferent, and to allow either O9 or 009 stock to be photographed. With hindsight for this view the backscene should have been replaced with plain sky as the Lincolnshire Coast Light Railway had a much flatter horizon!

Work is underway on the next diorama, which is going to be something a little different.

Colin

 

In Amongst the Undergrowth

Progress on the mini photo diorama has reached the point where I can say that it is complete - for now... when we saw it last I had just added the foliage material to the bramble/undergrowth patches and promised more scenic features to come. They did, as we shall see, but not until after I had taken a couple of test photos which led to me reconsidering two of my areas of undergrowth. I realised that the two patches in the front sections were never really going to be seen in photos and actually had the potential to be in the way causing out-of-focus blur in the foreground of images. Plain grass has now filled these areas.

Once the various smaller scenic effects were added to the undergrowth. It becomes tricky to see them in helicopter shots, so this next picture should give a better idea of the effect. I have used a combination of Peco grass tufts, Martin Welberg weed tufts, MiniNature flowers and some small leftovers of sea moss branches combined to fill in around the brambles/undergrowth areas.

Despite probably never being seen on camera, I added some extra texture around the areas where the newly added grass joined the old, an exercise in newspaper masks, hairspray and scatter material. This blends the joins (not that they are really visible) and just makes the plain grass areas have a little more interest to them. The reverse-shot shows the treatment along the edge of the grass.

You may have spotted that I have not gone to any effort to create a nice looking surround to this scene, just spraying the edge of the cat food box in grey primer when the track was painted. I really ought to at least gibe this a coat of something suitable, but I will probably refrain from any timber trim etc as this is really only a photographic tool rather than a display piece.

The next job will be to actually take some photographs...

Colin

Not on the High Street

I have made some scenic progress on the cat food box photographic diorama since those last experimental photos. This started with a ground cover mix made from tester pot paints, PVA and grey tile grout. The tester pots and PVA were both Wilko own-label products and sadly the opportunity to replace like-for-like is now likely to be limited. I had not been in a branch for ages but actually went in the day before they passed into administration and a couple of 1/2 price tester pots did end up in my basket... Whilst the ground cover mix was wet Woodland Scenics fine turf was sprinkled over and left to dry.

Hanging basket liner grass was then added as the start of the green scenery. There are more details on my technique in the Hanging Basket Liner Grass Step-by-Step.

 

With the grass trimmed I added some dead grass around the ballast edges using a Jarvis grass matt. Next came the basis of my brambles and undergrowth, made from the coir mat hanging basket liner, ripped apart, scrunched up, fixed with hairspray and then painted with brown aerosols (Halfords and Humbrol). They look a little ridiculous here, rather like over-scale birds nests, but as the one bottom-right shows, they will be vastly improved with trimming and adding foliage material (in this case recycled from a previous project).

After gluing the nests in place with PVA and leaving overnight to dry, I then added teased-out foliage mat material, Woodland Scenics and Hornby Skale Scenics, secured in place with hairspray and left to dry. Attention could then turn to adding further natural detail - more on that in due course.

Both hanging basket liners are Wilkos products, one discontinued for some time. It is great to model with high-street purchases, and worrying when a potential line of supply might go forever. Round here, with the warehouse up the road, everyone knows someone who has worked for Wilkinson's at some point, so my thoughts are with the staff at this difficult time...

Colin

 

On the Horizon

I've been carrying out a few further experiments with the under-development photo diorama. When we last saw it I had used the free Railway Modeller backscene and commented that it needed less foreground. With hindsight it needed less 'busy-ness' and a lower horizon too. I quickly printed off a view I had taken at Humberston last year and tried that as a background instead. 

It didn't really work, a cornfield is not really going to blend onto any of the foreground I provide and the gap where the track falls off the end is far too obvious. Something bushier is no doubt required...

I did try it with no foreground and just sky, which does rather make it look as if the railcar has reached the edge of a precipice! A fence or gate would help but may be a little restrictive in practice.

Despite the experimentation the scene is slowly progressing, ballast is now laid and I've dry-brushed the sleepers with a light wood/grey colour to make them look like weathered wood.

Colin

 

Diorama Development

As I have mentioned before, earlier this year I attempted to make a mini-photographic diorama that could fit in my 12" square lightbox for photography. I failed at this, on several occasions, and eventually gave it up as a bad job. A few weeks ago I started another attempt, this time in the medium of cat food box and polystyrene...

It's early days and some tweaking may be required, for example I may re-profile some of the raised area behind the track to lose the 'ski jump' effect behind the loco cab. I opted to try this shot using the free backscene provided by the Railway Modeller last year as a background, and it really adds some depth, although if pursued it needs to loose some of the foreground grassland and bring the trees down lower. 

One area where this version has really come out well is the colouring of the track. I had been using Halfords matt dark brown as a track colour base and getting a very heavy looking result. This time I have gone for a lot paler palette, a mist of grey primer, then a light spray of Humbrol 29 "dark" brown acrylic aerosol. Once dry the rail sides were picked out in Humbrol 160, slightly thinned. Some weathering will produce a result that really looks like dry timber sleepers and metal rails.

More soon...

Colin

The Headshunt - Taking a Fence (in place of a wall)

As I demonstrated last time the use of a small mirror appeared to resolve my issues with how best to photographically deal with the apparent 'gap' at the left hand end of 'The Headshunt' when pointing the camera in that direction. However the existing wall that represented a bricked-up gateway and pillar was not the best thing to reflect as it just looked odd. Having considered a timber building of some sort, I eventually realised that I was over-complicating things and instead settled on a low-key replacement in the form of two scratchbuilt fence panels made from bass wood. 

Although this looks like a post, rail and board fence it is in fact a cheat, the horizontal members are actually one sheet with cut-outs around the posts and the boards are scribed sheet rather than individual. This double layer of opposing grains made the piece quite strong. Nail marks were made across the planks using a track pin in a pin vice. I deliberately chose a pattern of fence that had a gap in the boarding where the upright stood. The reason for this choice becomes clear with a mirror, camera and slight touch-up 'in post'...

Not the clearest of pictures but it shows the effect well, the gap by the post makes the gap where the mirror sits blend right in!

Colin 

The Headshunt - They do it with mirrors

When we last saw the 'The Headshunt' a couple of weeks ago I was trying to see how the visual gap on the left could be filled for photography using an item of rolling stock. I had a further thought this week as to how the gap at the left-hand end could be "filled" for photography, so I ran an experiment, the Keef was hanging around as it is still for sale (hint)...

Whilst using a small mirror actually does fill the visual gap, it is clear that the reflection really makes little sense due to the doubled-up gatepost. What could work better is a sectional timber building, disguising the mirror with an upright. It is certainly something to consider, especially as it could be combined with the previous idea of an end-of carriage section to visually enclose the scene. 

Just for the record, this is the unedited version of the picture above.

Colin

 

'The Headshunt' - Taking a Trick-Shot

As alluded to in my previous post I have been considering the design of a new diorama to fit in a small photographic lightbox. Although I like that design, over the weekend I had a little play to see if there is an alternative, involving the recently refreshed 'The Headshunt'. 

When taking the most recent pictures of 'The Headshunt' I had been working in the shed with a basic LED strip light, but for the background I had used a large matt white plastic photographic sheet that my wife had picked up very cheaply. In the past I had always photographed this diorama on my desk using my standard desk lamp and whatever was to hand as the background, so the thought occurred to me that the sheet might be useable in the same way. The experimentation began... this is the set-up used, with a bonus glimpse of the new storage box being used as a height booster.

A pretty standard 3/4 shot. This is very satisfactory but I must trim the longer grass strands!

The awkward reverse-shot. Pleasingly the new grey edging is almost invisible in this and the next shot compared to the old black strip. My thoughts were turning to ways to reduce the white space, wondering if standing a carriage there might be the answer. 

Looking down the line. An anecdote from the rebuilding process is that I managed to snap the point lever during the work, hearing it ping across the shed never to be seen again. A new lever was found and colour matched to the original base.

The next day I thought I would try out the carriage trick for a shot pointing to the left, I think this works rather well and I'm baffled why I have never thought of it before!

This led to a further thought (dangerous, I know...) of a 'prop' of a half-coach that could be placed at the far left, and in combination with a couple of figures posed in conversation could "fill the gap" in photographs without having to have the coach right up against the subject matter. 

Overall I am very happy with the outcome, although I may try using a bit of one of the free Railway Modeller backscene pieces as a further trial in due course.

Developing a Diorama

As I have mentioned when describing recent changes to my diorama The Headshunt I have been trying to create a new photographic diorama that can be used within a small (12" x 12") lightbox. There have been a couple of false starts to say the least, however the work carried out on the older diorama has created a renewed interest in getting the job done...

I had conducted a little experiment with one of my 70mm deep scenes, just to see how it would work on camera, and in all honesty with a bit more depth it could work. However what this shot does highlight is how any such scene needs to have a fairly solid back piece (wall/fence/hedge) to really work, and the problem of how to treat the area where the track goes off the edge of the scene.

So the thought came to me that if there could be a building over the track at one end, and maybe a gate at the other, with wall or similar in between, an enclosed photo 'set' could be created. The idea in my mind was that it was some sort of workshop overhauling miniature railway stock, recalling photos of Fairbourne Railway locomotives outside Trevor Guest's workshop at Wollaston. 

Having located some of these in John Milner's 'Rails Through the Sands' I briefly fell into a rabbit hole of research, as I tried to find out a little more as there were two distinct buildings pictured. Luckily an article by John Tennant in 'The Narrow Gauge' no. 238 (Summer 2016) identified that there were two buildings in use, the 'bottom shed' and newer 'top shed'. They can both be seen in RAF aerial imagery from 1961 hosted by Historic England - Guest's yard is in the triangle of roads towards the top-left of the image. I adapted what I now know as the 'top shed' as the basis of this sketch.

The sketch reveals a host of background junk, and how by leaving the front third of each side clear, maximum camera angles are available in a small space of 8" x 6". In order to try out the idea I built a quick mock-up in the medium of cereal box and double-sided tape and placed it in the light box to try a few photo angles.

Generally speaking the concept worked, and a few trial shots resulted from different angles with a couple of locos used for the test shots. The grey and white makes balancing the images rather fun but that would not be an issue with a fully-developed scene. There is also the possibility of adding a temporary backscene piece behind the wall rather than relying on the lightbox.

There was a slight concern though, one that is not so apparent in the picture above... Although the lightbox kicks out an impressive amount of light, the further forward an item is the more the foreground starts to get into shadow. So when I used a slightly larger loco in the box, the front end isn't quite as well lit as the rear. I had encountered a similar issue on a couple of occasions that I had used 'The Headshunt' in the box end-on (not the greatest of ideas!).

So I had an idea, what if it cut the back two corners of a scene at 45 degrees? Prototype number two was therefore assembled from leftover cereal packet card.

This way the scene can be pushed further backwards into the light box and the front of a longer loco should be better lit. A Slaters gate makes a special guest (no pun intended) appearance here, as I only have the one of these it would have to be removeable to go at the end where it needed to be in the background.

The result is that there does appear to be an improvement in the lighting of long-loco shots. In this view the section of wall in the centre is up against the back of the light box.

The downside to this idea is that it does away with the workshop building, but it then occurred to me that there is actually a possibility of doing the 45 degree cut at just one end and having the best of both ideas...

Colin

A bit of work down 'The Headshunt'

Those with long memories may recall that last summer I had intended to give my larger O9 diorama 'The Headshunt' a scenic makeover, but in the end carried out a similar exercise on my 009 layout 'The Old Quarry Line'. Fast forward to March this year, and frustrated with my lack of success with a new photographic diorama to fit in a small lightbox, I decided to revisit my planned work on 'The Headshunt'. Firstly, a reminder of how it looked...

 

As well as needing some new scenic work, the other thing that was really troubling me was the heavy black surround in 5mm ply. This particularly looked awful at the left hand end where it crossed the track and platform. So I carefully (with a mallet and heavy-duty scraper!) removed it. Nothing fell apart so the front strip had similar treatment, leaving everything a little vulnerable until they were replaced. The replacements are from 3mm ply, gently rounded on the front upper edges to reduce their impact, and are also about 1mm lower. Painted grey rather than black they no longer dominate the diorama.

The two holes in the new front trim are an indication of another long-envisaged aspect of the rebuild project, as they are securing holes for a ply/hardboard cover to protect the scene in storage. 

Within the scene itself the new areas of foliage can be seen left and right. As with work on 'Beck Bridge' and 'The Old Quarry Line' these use teased-out coir hanging basket liner, sprayed in two shades of brown, and various foliage mats, stems and other items to create a varied effect. I have also added Martin Welberg tufts and some MiniNature flowers in moderation.

The pile junk behind the headshunt has grown a little, as all piles of junk do... The wagon is a KB Scale Hudson frame with Black Dog adaptor piece, with wooden deck. This was completed some time ago and saved for a use such as this. Adding this led to a rearrangement of the oil drums, which sounds easy but they were very well stuck down! The green one was moved elsewhere and the red/yellow one moved into it's place, it just looked better that way... The more subtle addition is a cab frontspiece on the right, part of an old A1 Models etch carefully painted and weathered.

Overall I am very happy with these long-awaited changes, one advantage of the delay has certainly been the use of the grey surround in place of black, in part inspired by seeing James Hilton's work recently. Working on 'The Headshunt' has certainly kept things going on the modelling front for the last few weeks too. Thoughts have now returned to the new photographic scene but nothing concrete has happened... yet.

Colin

 

Diorama Developments - To The End...

Diorama developments must go in pairs, as I was building the bench for 'Humberston' this piece of Slaters 7mm scale fence was also in the works. A relic of my childhood "attempts" at O-16.5 modelling it was covered in a dubious coat of glossy brown enamel paint. A bath in Dettol soon sorted this out and with a little cleaning up the piece was useable.

I had used a piece of this fencing on 'Stuck in a Siding', a diorama that I built a few years ago depicting a derelict 15" gauge coach, very much inspired by the 'Abandoned Miniatures' page on Facebook. I also used this scene to experiment with making a puddle in the fashion of Gordon Gravett. The coach largely hid the fence from view in normal conditions so here the diorama is seen without it.

For this use I had added a woodgrain effect and distressed the planking a little to make it look a little less cared for. I did the same with the recovered section, as I wanted it to match... For in an audacious bit of diorama tinkering I have extended the originally 140mm long scene to match the 220mm of 'The Path To' and 'Humberston' (I guess that makes 220mm the new "standard" length!).

I managed to get the fence to join neatly enough to fill the gaps, touch in the paint finish and add diagonal joins in the cross-members. The actual join is nearly invisible. The junk pile has been moved and supplemented with a few extra pieces including an A1 Models bonnet front. I have managed to match the hanging basket liner ground cover from the original piece, as well as adding areas of Martin Welberg weed tufts and some longer Peco tufts. To give extra variety I added some rock outcrops at the back from home-made plaster castings and concrete area in the foreground, simply card covered with Green Scene concrete texture paint, and then weathered.

The plan had been to add the skip frame flat wagon seen in a previous posting, but late on in the process I had a rethink and decided to rebody it (again!). A few years ago I built a representation of the Sherwood Forest Railway' s skip framed open wagon on a much modified RCL skip frame hiding a Peco chassis (and undersized wheels) underneath. A bit on the featherweight side it has never really been used, and at the diorama viewing angle the undersize wheels were too apparent so I have transferred the body to the the more accurate chassis. The real wagon lacks the central bar along it's length so this was also removed. The Black Dog adaptor and flat wagon body have been transferred to the chassis prepared last year as a scenic item with broken axleboxes - waste not want not!

With the wagon in place on the diorama with the original carriage the revised scene is completed, new basswood strips were added front and back to hide the join in the MDF base and with this the opportunity taken to rename the diorama 'To the End'.

An investigation has been launched into the whereabouts of the missing full stop! It was there when I put the letters on... The overall result is (I feel), a much better balanced scene than the original.

I may yet add a figure to the scene, as with 'Humberston' this helps with scale, the perils of being a multi-scale modeller!

Colin

Diorama Developments - Humberston

I have managed to get a picture of the 'Humberston' diorama with both the figures and the train in place.

The figures and bench add the finishing touches to the scene and help set the scale, always useful when displayed in the same cabinet as some of my O9 scenes!

As is always the way with these things, the extra work on 'Humberston' prompted some work on one of those O9 scenes, more next time...

Colin

Wagon-mongering

I've said it before an I'll say it again, when I start tinkering with wagons something is either amiss or afoot...

Seeking a suitable wagon for an extended diorama I'm working on (more on that another time), my initial thoughts were to use my Black Dog Mining mine tub, at that point sat on a KB Scale skip frame. In context that looked a bit wrong so I switched it back onto it's original chassis, however it still didn't look quite right - being too much of a view block. 

Recalling a picture I had seen recently of a skip frame flat wagon where the planks were longitudinal to the frame I opted to make a flat wagon on the KB Scale skip frame. I initially scribed some 60 thou styrene to make a planked top but I found this looked far too neat and instead added basswood planks over the Black Dog adaptor. The planks were finished in a weathered wood effect and representations of nail marks made using a pin.

I had loaded the tub with a couple of Black Dog leaning sacks and a pallet, rather random but it worked in the context of the diorama. The flat has a Black Dog laying sack, all of these parts being from the painted selection I had to hand having been used in other places in the past.

I do rather like the mine tub with the block couplers and it is causing a few thoughts about how to treat wagons if I ever get that un-stalled layout project back into motion...

Colin

From the bench at Humberston

When I built my 'Humberston' diorama I always intended to go back and a little more, including a bench on the platform and a couple of suitable posed figures to bring a little more life into the scene. Looking at photos of the real LCLR revealed that the benches were most likely ex-LNER ones with a mixture of two and three support variations, seen to advantage in this picture of South Sea Lane and in the background of this North Sea Lane picture.

Looking at available 4mm scale benches I couldn't see anything that quite matched, at least something that wasn't going to either leave a lot of spare benches and be easily obtained. The Cooper Craft GWR bench kit looked like it had potential if de-Westernised, but getting hold of one is a tricky business due to supply issues. Luckily a plea on the NGRM Online forum turned up a pair of spare ends and from these I could build a reasonable representation of an LNER bench.

The seat itself is 30 thou styrene scribed into two planks and rounded on the edges, the back pieces are 30x40 and 30x80 strip. Underneath lengths of 30x40 strip sit under the join in the planking. The Cooper Craft ends have lost their GWR scrollwork to become a passable representation of the LNER supports

The bench was red oxide primed and then several attempts were made to get the colour right, a light maroon but not too, well, maroon... With some dry brushing of a lighter shade on the edges it looks about right. It has been joined by some new figures for 'Humberston'. Ironically none of them want to sit on the bench!

The figures are an assortment of Dapol ones, chosen to be a little "timeless" in style and to have the look of figures riding a seaside railway rather than being 1960s commuters. Modifications are few, the lady with the umbrella has had her hat removed and blended into her hair, and the little boy has lost his long socks and had his cap rounded to look less schoolboy-like. Positioned on the diorama they tell a little tale, the boy seems keen to watch the Simplex depart whilst his mum and sister look on waiting (no doubt in despair). The railwayman waits for departure time...

I will try and get some pictures of the complete diorama in due course. I have also been working on a few changes to another diorama, but that will have to wait for another day!

Colin