Now with Added Wings

I've really got into this project, and after some serious scribing, I finally finished the Wing Walls this evening. Following my own ideas, and backed up by the frankly brilliant Iain Robinson, I painted up the stonework to match the already painted main portal  and loosely propped the walls in front of the portal. Hopefully I'll get a shot of the placed portal in situ with a loco for effect this weekend.

I have to say, I think the Foamex project has definitely succeeded, and whilst being very time consuming, has resulted in a much more pleasing result than the printed cardboard kit I was previously using. The added bonus is that it's incredibly lightweight, so if anyone is interested, these would be great for a portable layout. Hope you enjoy, Lee

Ok, I spent the weekend finishing off the architecture, adding some more capping stones and the parapet wall, then I set to painting. Not 100% happy with the colour, but the photography seems to do it justice (albeit changing the colour in a bad light situation) so I'm happy enough to show it at this point.

I may well revisit the paint job in the near future, but for now I give you...The Tunnel Portal in Stone...

I've yet to add wing walls, but I'll have a look at rebuilding the station platforms and adjoining retaining walls first, so I can work out where the right hand wing wall will go (the left hand side butting up to the start of the long retaining wall section.

Scribing, Scalpels and Foamex

Hello all. I've been very quiet on the blog as of late, as I just haven't had time to do any modelling, or had any enthusiasm due to being just too darn tired of an evening. But! I've been given an injection of enthusiasm, reading the various modelling blogs and forums out there, so have delved back into the architecture aspect of Railway modelling. 

I've not given up on the Station Building, merely put it aside for a while as I investigate a new technique.

At work, we have an awful lot of offcuts, destined for the bin, of a product called Foamex, which is essentially a compressed polystyrene product that we use for mounting large format exhibition prints. I've used it before as a substrate for sticking printed wall sheets and indeed Air Drying Clay, but this time I decided to see whether I could successfully scribe onto it. 

Initial attempts were based on trying to make an alternative to the printed retaining walls I've been using on my layout.

Version 1 seemed to be quite good, but I thought a bit blocky:

I gave it a bit of texture by roughing it up a bit with 60 grit sandpaper and bashing it about on the garage floor, then hand scribing with a sharp scalpel blade, making the mortar gaps a bit wider with a screwdriver for added emphasis.

Version 2 with added individual carved stones:

I was initially happy with this, before I spent yesterday morning travelling to work on the train and passing through Dewsbury station (a look I'm trying to emulate) I saw that the stonework was smaller random Ashlar, so upon getting home, I set to work building a tunnel portal, scribing in the smaller ashlar stone work. This involved printing out a sheet of Random Ashlar from Scalescenes.com, sticking it onto the Foamex sheet, then using a scalpel to cut in the stone pattern. Once complete, I peeled off the print and went over all the lines with sharp scalpel, scratching in more detail. It took up a whole evening, but even unpainted, I'm very happy with this, so I'll continue with the build and get the parapets in, then have a go painting it up.