Diorama too cluttered!

[Quinn]

I've learned the lesson - don't overdo the scenery. Makes it difficult to show the trains.

 

The top pic is my C11 trolling along a rural line pulling a small excursion.

The lower one is a view of the rail crossing across a pond at night. Unfortunately a black loco doesn't show up in the murk!

 

Edited July 31, 2017 by Quinn

[valkyriepm]

Nice scenery anyway.

[Kiha66]

Amazing work on the diorama, those black locomotives can be tricky to photograph! 

[Khaul]

The prototype, nature, is often too cluttered and on the way. I like your very English approach to modelling the landscape. Your dioramas are like Stourhead with nice trains.

[velotrain]

The top pic is my C11 trolling along a rural line pulling a small excursion.

The lower one is a view of the rail crossing across a pond at night. Unfortunately a black loco doesn't show up in the murk!

 

 

Is there a black loco in the frame - behind the tree?

Don't blame the landscape for a black loco.

[Quinn]

Thank you for your most encouraging comments. The problem is going to be escaping the "Englishness" - it's been a blight, my efforts being too anglecised even if the dioramas are filled with Japanese buildings. I hope to do something about it as I go along. The pics in the catalogues are always a help for ideas. 

[katoftw]

It is not that it is cluttered.  But you have just put a few large trees are in the front of the diorama.  Use smaller tree that don't obstruct viewing so much.

[cteno4]

But it's also nice to have places the trains can be hidden for bit on a layout and on a diorama it's nice if a bit of a train can be hidden to make it come out of the scene. There are things done in dioramas like this to make the scene continue off the diorama's edges in the minds eye and not get lopped off at the edge of the diorama. There is also the island vs window diorama that has different needs and results.

 

But if the diorama is to display a train then yes it needs to be open in the front to see the train and the diorama is then to just focus attention to the train. These two things fight each other so one needs to be primary and the other secondary based on the desire of the modeler. This happens in design a lot with wants fighting each other and when given proper priorities they usually find a harmony that works and you get the most you can get, rarely you get it all, but the hunt is finding the best permutation!

 

Jeff

[velotrain]

It is indeed a very British sort of landscape.  I don't see any buildings at all, Japanese or otherwise - so that must be a different diorama.

 

For me it somewhat depends on whether this is planned as an isolated, static diorama - or is meant to be part of a layout at some point.  I don't have a problem with large trees in front - it gives the trains something to emerge from, sort of like a tunnel.  I think it's good to provide partial view blocks, that people need to peer around.  Most model railroad trees are generally small with a molded look, while yours depict realistic, mature trees.  I prefer model trains passing through a landscape, rather than a pseudo-landscape decorating a model train layout.

 

What strikes me most is that your work reads as an integrated landscape, while the scenery on Japan-oriented layouts often has a pasted-on, "out-of-the-box" look to it.

 

Given your skills, I would look at images of actual Japanese landscapes, and not catalogs.  Since you have learned to create English landscapes, you can clearly design Japanese landscapes with a little practice. 

[velotrain]

I find it interesting that Jeff and I were simultaneously writing almost the exact same comments ;-)

[Kb4iuj]

What you have here in these photo's is a tiny n scale train on a diorama that looks like it could be HO or O scale. Put the big bushy trees and stuff behind the train on the side of a hill.

[cteno4]

Well I think you tolk the practical side of the coin and me the theoretical! Glad we are not saying the exact same things or pigs may take wing or bellezabub get frostbite! ;-p

 

Cheers

 

Jeff

[Quinn]

Well, it is lesson learned, taking on board these comments (for which, many thanks). Setting the willow trees on the lakeside took too much prominence (and doesn't look good anyway. More work needed).

 

There's only one main building, the café, here in the dusk.

 

 

Hopefully things will improve on a new diorama, a small industrial site. I have much to learn.

 

Again, thank you!

 

 

[velotrain]

I do have two issues with the building - it's tilting, and there's a shadow under the foundation - suggesting that you didn't plan on placing it there permanently.

[Quinn]

It needs a bit more work than that.The light is unbalanced. the canopy lights and vending machine need higher value resistors. I take these photos to check things like that. At the time I took them, the leds were running on 6 volts. The interior and other lamps seem ok so I have to take the café out to do the work - the electronics are inside the back. The alternative would be to dim everything by running them at, say, 4.5volts. I'll try that before I take the thing to pieces but I prefer altering the resistors. 

[Kiha66]

I think it looks great Quinn, love how the lone street lights at the crossing make a tiny island of light in the darkness!  Have you tried taking multiple photos at different exposure levels, then combining them digitally to get let the detail in the darker areas show while not overexposing the lit parts?   I usually try to take my photos in natural sunlight, but I really like the twilight effect your diorama has!  What about adding lit passenger car to the scene?

[cteno4]

Quinn, nice! Fun playing with lighting. You might try variable resistors, they are cheap and let you play with the lighting to get it just right or change it just for a special photo shoot. Lighting does not scale so well so you have to really play with it to get the effect you want to the eye and to the camera (very different with lighting on models). Lighting models in the day is good (most buildings have a lot of interior light in the day), but again with models you usually need a lot more light to get the proper daylight effect over nighttime.

 

http://www.ebay.com/itm/DZ912-2K-OHM-Trimpot-Trimmer-Potentiometer-Pot-Variable-Resistor-RM065-202-x10-/311634678639?hash=item488edfd36f:g:MDgAAOSw3YNXX66U

 

You can just solder up a little pc board with some terminal strips or micro plugs to your power source and then thru a bank of these pots and up to your leds. Throw in a little extra length on the leads to the leds and you could pull out the little board from under a module when you want to set lighting for whatever.

 

Cheers,

 

Jeff

 

Ps this is great wire for led wiring from power source resistor to leds. It's pretty fine and robust and the cheapest wire you can find out there. On models it scales out to like 1.5" dia conduit if you have it show. It's pretinned so solders well and does not loose strands when you strip the insulation (an issue with most very vine gauge insulated wires). Search 305 wire (length of a coil in m) on ebay in business and industrial. Also called wrapping wire as use to be use to make temp pc board circuits. Great stuff for leds

 

https://www.ebay.com/sch/Business-Industrial/12576/i.html?_from=R40&LH_BIN=1&_nkw=305+wire

[velotrain]

Quinn -  On the assumption that your willow (if not all) trees are home-made, is there a site that shows the technique you use?

[Quinn]

Some useful insights have come from this for which I thank those who responded. It missed me completely that shops would have interior lights on during the day! I mean, I’ve been in enough shops that I should know.

 

The other is using preset resistors in the various light circuits. I’m not an electronics expert but I learned to calculate a resistor for a given brightness. I was worried about power handling of presets but the calculation also isn’t difficult and the ones shown in the link would handle the power likely to be involved. I’d put a lower-value fixed resistor in circuit in case of accidents then a preset. It’s something I’ll do in new dioramas.

 

Once again, thanks.  

 

 

 

Quinn -  On the assumption that your willow (if not all) trees are home-made, is there a site that shows the technique you use?

 

Unfortunately I can't suggest any sites. The trees are made with mirror wire (the steel core gives quite good support) and the willows with "sprays" of 0.1mm wire pulled from extra-flex cable soldered on the armature.  

 

To bulk out some trees I use Woodland Scenics polyfibre pulled very thin. I used some on the willows. I think the foliage is Javis light green scatter, maybe mixed with some yellow.  They needed a good spraying with hair-lacquer to keep everything on.

 

Even so, they don't look quite right and when I get time I'll tweak them a bit. 

 

I'm sorry I can't be more helpful and it's probably time I looked up a few sites to find out how to do it properly. 

 

There's always more to learn! 

 

 

 

.