Tomytec Modern Corner Office (Easy) Kitbash

[James-SNMB]

I just saw that the Tomytec 134-2 Corner Modern Office Building is being re-released in May:

• https://www.1999.co.jp/eng/10580103 (HobbySearch labels it as Corner Brownstone Apartment, but I think that might be an error)

 

Just thought I'd share the kitbash I started in case anyone is interested in picking up a few of these and doing something similar. I picked up two kits planning to stack them, but it turns out it's even easier than I thought it would be. I haven't really seen any examples of someone stacking these kits elsewhere online, so I figured it was worth sharing.

 

The building comes in three pieces: the lobby/main floor, the middle three floor section, and the roof.

 

These pieces have tabs, so it's a quick assembly. Of course, there's nothing stopping you from inserting another middle section, as I have done here:

 

That's... all I've done so far. Here are some thoughts/notes:

• This assembly I've put together is 155 mm (6-1/8") tall (7 floors)
• I like the proportions of this assembly better than the stock (single) kit, and it works better in an urban layout.
• The middle three floor piece is 60 mm (2-3/8") tall (10 floors). If I picked up a third kit, that would get me to 215 mm (8-1/2").... I'm tempted.
• The footprint (ignoring the curve) is 60 mm x 60 mm, so going too tall would give some odd looking proportions. I think 3 kits is the limit, personally, but Japan has some skinny buildings, so who knows.
• You could try to integrate the extra lobby into the build, maybe make a two floor retail space in the bottom, but I'm not sure I liked the look of that when I mocked it up. Alternatively, pop on the spare roof and you've got a one floor corner store to drop in a lower density location of your layout, or use in another (real) kitbash as a base to another building
• I plan to light the building and add an interior, so I'll have to seal the gaps between the pieces, and that's going to mean re-painting the whole thing. If you're not lighting the building, the gaps aren't too bad. You can see a bit of gap in the middle of my assembly above, but there's a bit of flashing on one piece that needed to be filed, and that'll make that gap shrink considerably and look more like the gaps at the main floor or the roof, which are much less noticeable and would mostly vanish if I glued those pieces together (which I will do once I finish the interiors)
• The colour of the building is a medium-light grey rather than the almost white appearance shown on the box and the thumbnails online. I think I like the whiter color a bit better for this building, so I'll probably go for that given that I'll have to repaint to hide the seam filler anyway.

 

I'll have to decide if I want to pick up another kit to add, but that will bring it up to about $45 USD (total) on what is still a pretty small building, so I'm probably better served by deploying the extra $15 elsewhere. I have a few other buildings in the 150-200 mm range that this will look nice beside this one, and I'm happy with the proportions as is... but we'll see. I'm still tempted. I'll have to play around with various building arrangements on my layout to make this call. I've got time. Lots of other projects to work on, and kids/babies, so it's going to be a while before I get to finishing this one.

 

Anyone else played around with these kits?

[gavino200]

1 hour ago, James-SNMB said:

 

• I plan to light the building and add an interior, so I'll have to seal the gaps between the pieces, and that's going to mean re-painting the whole thing. If you're not lighting the building, the gaps aren't too bad. You can see a bit of gap in the middle of my assembly above, but there's a bit of flashing on one piece that needed to be filed, and that'll make that gap shrink considerably and look more like the gaps at the main floor or the roof, which are much less noticeable and would mostly vanish if I glued those pieces together (which I will do once I finish the interiors)
• The colour of the building is a medium-light grey rather than the almost white appearance shown on the box and the thumbnails online. I think I like the whiter color a bit better for this building, so I'll probably go for that given that I'll have to repaint to hide the seam filler anyway.

 

 

 

Thanks for making this guide. Very nice project. 

 

I you want to "light proof" the building for interior lighting (so it doesn't glow), you only have to paint the interior. What works for me is black paint to block the light, and then a coat of white paint to reflect light. 

 

I think I did a little write up on the method I used. I can link it to you if you're interested. 

[cteno4]

Nice job! 
 

yep many of the tomytec multistory and old Tomix and some of the kato buildings can be quickly stacked up like this. The old Tomix apartment building you can do it a floor at a time and even alternate colors. The old high rise splits in 2 story sections so you can quickly change them (we do this all the time with the club layout to change up the skyline). Then use the extra roof and base to make a short building for the suburbs.

 

Doug Coster has a whole series of these kitbashes he did like this on a few dozen Tomix, Kato and greenmax buildings, but sadly it’s gone. The new Tomytec taller building all look to have try to keep this ability in them.

 

like you say a bit taller sometimes feels better proportion in a heavy urban and lower ones in the berbs! 
 

cheers

 

jeff

[James-SNMB]

16 hours ago, gavino200 said:

 

Thanks for making this guide. Very nice project. 

 

I you want to "light proof" the building for interior lighting (so it doesn't glow), you only have to paint the interior. What works for me is black paint to block the light, and then a coat of white paint to reflect light. 

 

I think I did a little write up on the method I used. I can link it to you if you're interested. 

Good point. If I seal the gaps from the inside and just paint the inside that would make it light proof. It's the appearance of the seams on the outside that I'm thinking about, and if I get really picky I might smooth those out with filler. TBD.

 

I will definitely take a link to your guide. I have a bunch of buildings that I'm getting ready to paint, and the more techniques I can learn from the better!

[James-SNMB]

14 hours ago, cteno4 said:

yep many of the tomytec multistory and old Tomix and some of the kato buildings can be quickly stacked up like this. The old Tomix apartment building you can do it a floor at a time and even alternate colors. The old high rise splits in 2 story sections so you can quickly change them (we do this all the time with the club layout to change up the skyline). Then use the extra roof and base to make a short building for the suburbs.

 

Doug Coster has a whole series of these kitbashes he did like this on a few dozen Tomix, Kato and greenmax buildings, but sadly it’s gone. The new Tomytec taller building all look to have try to keep this ability in them.

That's good to know a lot of the Tomytec products have this easy stackability. I definitely thought I was going to have to do some cutting for this one, and was pleasantly surprised. I'll check out the other Tomytec lineup for ideas.

 

I have the tomix office building, and have seen lots of examples of people stacking and combing kits to make some interesting looking buildings for sure. It's a shame we've lost the Doug Coster guides. I spend more studying other people's work for inspiration than working on my own projects! 

[Cat]

Our planned stacking of the corner unit will definitely take a little bit of fill work with strips of styrene and my staunch friend, Testor's Contour Putty for filling small gaps.

We'll be putting 2 ground floors on the bottom, one at street level, and the next up at a pedestrian plaza level.

[cteno4]

Yeah actually few of the 4+ story buildings can’t be pulled apart easily, most are very easy to stack up like this. Greenmax require hacking of the solid wall elements, but they usually have a reasonable place to saw them apart and rejoin. A couple of their sets are meant for mainly kitbashing different, interesting ways.

 

yeah, I’ll look I think I have all the photos from doug’s site and can share them with you if you want. I have a habit of grabbing photos from sites like that as they don’t last forever! I’ll see if I have the links for doug’s old sites and see if any made it into the way back machine.

 

jeff

[gavino200]

3 hours ago, James-SNMB said:

Good point. If I seal the gaps from the inside and just paint the inside that would make it light proof. It's the appearance of the seams on the outside that I'm thinking about, and if I get really picky I might smooth those out with filler. TBD.

 

I will definitely take a link to your guide. I have a bunch of buildings that I'm getting ready to paint, and the more techniques I can learn from the better!

 

No problem. It's about half way down the page on this thread. I tried a lot of different methods and this was what I came up with eventually. It works quite well. I used an airbrush here. But I used to do it with a brush. 

 

For the corners, I solved to problems with one fix. For buildings I like to put them together with a glue that's quite strong but can still be taken apart easily with no damage. You never know when you might want to change something inside. Or I guess LEDs will eventually stop working though it hasn't happened yet. Anyway I personally love E6000 glue, and it comes in white and black varieties. Both block light very well. 

 

 

[cteno4]

Gavin,

 

thanks for the e6000 idea. I use it for lots of fabric, felt and wood mixtures as it’s good at gap filling and does mixed materials well, but never thought of it for plastic structures to tear them apart. I’ve usually used PVA in the few situations I wat to be able to pop it but it’s a pain to work with on plastics, e6000 would be easier and as you say removable, probably like a stiffer stronger rubber cement (which I’ve used in odd situations as well)! Always amazes me how there are always new twists out there with the stuff sitting in your workbench! Only big thing I’ve learned is not to buy the large tubes of e6000 (unless a large project) as it tends to setup pretty fast in the tube in a few weeks to a couple of months on me no matter how well it seal the tube up! Have you had this happen? Lady at the craft shop mentioned it to me last time I bought a pack of the small tubes. she said “big tube set up on you?” I said yep and she said she has the same problem.

 

jeff

[gavino200]

2 minutes ago, cteno4 said:

Gavin,

 

thanks for the e6000 idea. I use it for lots of fabric, felt and wood mixtures as it’s good at gap filling and does mixed materials well, but never thought of it for plastic structures to tear them apart. I’ve usually used PVA in the few situations I wat to be able to pop it but it’s a pain to work with on plastics, e6000 would be easier and as you say removable, probably like a stiffer stronger rubber cement (which I’ve used in odd situations as well)! Always amazes me how there are always new twists out there with the stuff sitting in your workbench! Only big thing I’ve learned is not to buy the large tubes of e6000 (unless a large project) as it tends to setup pretty fast in the tube in a few weeks to a couple of months on me no matter how well it seal the tube up! Have you had this happen? Lady at the craft shop mentioned it to me last time I bought a pack of the small tubes. she said “big tube set up on you?” I said yep and she said she has the same problem.

 

jeff

 

I'll soon find out. I have a few large tubes that have been sitting in a box for about six months. I'll let you know. I can't wait to get back to working on buildings!

[James-SNMB]

On 5/3/2020 at 10:11 AM, Cat said:

Our planned stacking of the corner unit will definitely take a little bit of fill work with strips of styrene and my staunch friend, Testor's Contour Putty for filling small gaps.

We'll be putting 2 ground floors on the bottom, one at street level, and the next up at a pedestrian plaza level.

Please post some pics when you get around to this project. I want to see how that turns out! Just gotta hide/incorporate the door on the second level. Maybe block it with a sign or something. I might have to play with this idea some more.

[James-SNMB]

I'm furiously writing notes. Thanks for the link, Gavin. I like the sounds of the E6000 too. Having the option to open the building up again without causing tremendous damage is something I've been pondering. I've considered access from the bottom, or a removable core, but that's not very practical for everything I'm planning on doing. Thanks for these killer tips everyone!

[Cat]

In our case the doors on both levels are perfect for the office tower at the south entrance to Mito Station.  Doors on the ground floor by the bus terminal, and doors up on the first floor on the pedestrian plaza with the main train station entrance.  The plaza stretches out over the bus platforms and across the street.

We're building a Shorty version, not a full scale model, so a pair of those round office buildings will do nicely for the office building:
https://www.google.com/maps/search/mito+station+south+entrance/@36.3680859,140.4765265,190a,35y,348.91h,47.52t/data=!3m1!1e3?hl=en

 

Rough mock-up can be seen here in the layout planning thread, more photos will follow in the layout building thread later:
https://jnsforum.com/community/topic/16434-ibaraki-shorty-planning-naka-river-modules-draft-1/?tab=comments#comment-206417