See it. Make it.

[maihama eki]

Starting a new topic for making items that you see, and then reproduce. Very simple, you see something, and then make it real in small scale.

 

First item is this unusual Sapporo beer truck I spotted in Ginza about a year ago.

 

 

If you buy the "Storage Casket" for your Tomytec The Truck Collection, the casket comes with a spare unpainted truck. I took one of these chassis and beds, and borrowed the painted cab from another truck in the series. This truck bed is a little long, but usable. I designed and 3D printed the the tanks and the pump thing at the front of the bed. I found some appropriate logos and made water slide decals. Some painting, etc. and we get this.

 

 

Edited December 12, 2020 by maihama eki

[gavino200]

That looks fantastic. Also, I love the idea of a see it - do it challenge!!

[JR 500系]

Lovely! That is beautiful! Very well done!

 

I do have MANY unpainted moulds of trucks and buses but i seriously do not have the courage to try painting them cause my skills are lower than zero in painting..... 

[roadstar_na6]

What do you have to loose trying it, @JR 500系?

[maihama eki]

Today's offering is a Showa-era Toden station marker. I bought a nice photo book on Toden this past year https://www.amazon.co.jp/gp/product/4802208995  These station posts were the standard at one time. I think most of them are gone now, but both are still in place at Koshinzuka station.

 

 

The body is 3D printed, the post is a brass tube, some paint and home-printed decals to get this:

 

 

A tiny piece of my glacial-slow progressing T-Trak module.

 

[Madsing]

Really nice! And the colors are spot on!

[maihama eki]

How about a Yamato cargo bike? I have seen these a few times around Tokyo and finally had a chance to get a picture of one parked. I thought it was really unique and wanted to be able to add it to some future layout scene.

 

 

I currently only use a fairly basic 3D modeling tool - TinkerCAD, but I was able to achieve something close enough to satisfy me. The details are a bit challenging in n-scale. I threw a handmade cardboard box on for added interest.

 

Edited December 31, 2020 by maihama eki

[Kamome442]

Just found this, beautiful work Maihama and what a great idea for a thread.

Looking forward to seeing what you cook up next!

Joe

[gavino200]

That's a beautiful layout detail, Maihama. I hope to someday play this game too! I'm mostly dealing with lumber and track at the moment. 

[maihama eki]

Today, we are going to try to reproduce an icon of the Japanese pharmaceutical company, Sato - known as Satochan. You can see various little figures of Satochan in front of pharmacies in Japan. Here he is with his sister Satokochan.

 

 

Creating something like this presented me with a bit of a challenge. It could be 3D printed, but creating the 3D model is the difficult step.

 

One can buy small figures of Satochan - on eBay for example for relatively cheap, so I did that first.

 

 

The easy way to get a 3D model of something like this is to scan it. You could do this yourself with a little bit of software and a video camera - there are even apps for your mobile phone to do it. I decided to send it off for scanning though. There are relatively affordable services for this.

 

Then you have a 3D file that can be printed. Since we are going to print this very tiny ~ 5mm tall, a good printer is required. I sent it to Shapeways for printing in "Frosted Extreme Detail".

 

 

 

A little cleanup and smoothing of the print and some painting under the microscope, and you can get a decent little figure.

 

 

Look for him in front of an n-scale pharmacy soon.

 

 

Edited February 15, 2021 by maihama eki

[Tony Galiani]

Amazing!  Great idea and great results.  Talk about raising the bar ....

Ciao,

Tony Galiani

[gavino200]

Very nice!! Amazing really. What kind of microscope are you using?

[maihama eki]

Thanks all for the comments.

 

Gavin, I have a stereo microscope 3.5 to 45X with a boom stand and LED light. It is this one:

 

https://www.amscope.com/stereo-microscopes/zoom-power/3-5x-45x-trinocular-stereo-microscope-with-4-zone-144-led-ring-light.html

 

I use a similar - although much more expensive Swiss-made microscope on my desk at work that I used to use occasionally for model train stuff. I haven't been in the office in over 11 months because of Covid, so that one is collecting dust at work. I decided to buy one to have at home. It's really indispensable now, and I'm glad I bought it. I looked for a used one online for a while and could never really find one for a reasonable price that didn't look abused or missing pieces.

[gavino200]

10 minutes ago, maihama eki said:

Thanks all for the comments.

 

Gavin, I have a stereo microscope 3.5 to 45X with a boom stand and LED light. It is this one:

 

https://www.amscope.com/stereo-microscopes/zoom-power/3-5x-45x-trinocular-stereo-microscope-with-4-zone-144-led-ring-light.html

 

I use a similar - although much more expensive Swiss-made microscope on my desk at work that I used to use occasionally for model train stuff. I haven't been in the office in over 11 months because of Covid, so that one is collecting dust at work. I decided to buy one to have at home. It's really indispensable now, and I'm glad I bought it. I looked for a used one online for a while and could never really find one for a reasonable price that didn't look abused or missing pieces.

 

Thanks, I really want one of those. I use a Leica scope at work that goes up to 40, but I rarely go over around 10x. I use 3x Loupes for all my "non-micro" work. I love working with the microscope.

 

I'm a big fan of your modelling btw. My modelling skills are embryonic but your work inspires me. 

[cteno4]

Ohh nice. I keep looking at these all the time as I love working under them. I spent a lot of time with them in grad school and am very comfortable using them so much better than the big 3-5 diopter lenses on a swing arm. I should at some point just get one instead of eternally holding off. I have an old Zeiss dissection scope i scavenged from the trash in grad school but it starts at 10x so bit too close for a lot of what I would be doing.

 

jeff

[maihama eki]

The venerable and ubiquitous Japan Post box. This is one of the first things I ever modeled in 3D and had printed. I just painted a few more of them.

 

 

They come in a variety of heights, box sizes, etc. The one on the right got a flat coat, the others are shiny new. I wish I had a way to make some tiny white decals to finish them off. Maybe someday.

 

 

 

[roadstar_na6]

wow those are neat!

[gavino200]

Outstanding work, as usual, Maihama!!

[gavino200]

14 minutes ago, maihama eki said:

I wish I had a way to make some tiny white decals to finish them off. Maybe someday.

 

There has to be a way to design and print (or have printed) custom tiny decals for projects like this. It's something I really want to learn too. It would take a project like this, from brilliance to perfection. It would take one of mine from basic to ok. 

 

I'm super busy with some work now. But I'll make a tread about this when I get more time. 

[cteno4]

Maybe just a little square of white decal (you can buy this to print on) and just a few bits on it. You can print your own and with a high resolution inkjet printer get stuff pretty small. Just print onto decal material and then hit with a couple of light coats of clear acrylic to seal the ink. Alternative is to get decal material for laser printer and then you don’t have to seal the ink, but toner for little tiny bits can me more of an issue to lay down.

 

When doing little projects I lay out what I’m doing in a thin horizontal strip so it’s like a 1/2” strip across a sheet and manually feed the decal paper, then cut off the printed strip but and reseed the slightly shorter paper for the next job. With the rollers in my printer I can ecen cut the sheet vertically into 4.25” strips and do this to just do little bits and waste little of the decal paper.

 

maihama, I can toss some white decal paper in the mail to you, I have extra as I got sent a package of white when I ordered clear. This actually happened twice as the same supplier for micromark and testors screwed up and mislabeled a large batch! Pm me your address.

 

cheers,

 

jeff

[maihama eki]

Hi Jeff,

 

Thanks for the ideas and your kind offer. 

 

I've been using the sunnyscopa decal paper with my laser printer. They have 2 varieties of clear (regular and thin) and a white. It works very well and I like that you can use it directly out of the printer without sealing. https://www.amazon.com/stores/sunnyscopa/page/8AEC2A28-6E07-4F00-99CE-01424A187DE7?ref_=ast_bln

 

The truck at the top of this topic uses the clear for all the decals, and the station sign post uses the white.

 

I could probably print red on top of the white to get the little white 〒 and lay it down on top of the red painted shell. I don't think I could get a scale version that would be legible - at least not with the printer I currently have.

 

I've searched a little for service providers to do either white dry transfers or white on clear water slide decals. I haven't gone any further though. The set-up aspect is a little pricy when you only want a sheet or two. I also haven't figured out if the resolution would be adequate for what I really want.

[cteno4]

Cool. I liked the laserprinter decals, but then my color laserprinted died and I decided not to replace it. Much nicer not to have to seal them and you can also do rub on transfers. Nice they make a thin version now.

 

Doh! I was just looking at the rectangular signs not the symbol there! Yep symbol would be hard to print. Could try to match the red paint and mask it, but as you said it’s like 1mm or so, so probably won’t be legible. Worth a shot. Maybe print the whole front panel so a tad diff in the red and the edges of the decal look like it’s the front panel/door and you won’t notice any color difference.

 

services are pricy, especially with white print.

 

jeff

[chickendrop]

On 2/15/2021 at 12:03 PM, maihama eki said:

Today, we are going to try to reproduce an icon of the Japanese pharmaceutical company, Sato - known as Satochan. You can see various little figures of Satochan in front of pharmacies in Japan. Here he is with his sister Satokochan.

 

 

Creating something like this presented me with a bit of a challenge. It could be 3D printed, but creating the 3D model is the difficult step.

 

One can buy small figures of Satochan - on eBay for example for relatively cheap, so I did that first.

 

 

The easy way to get a 3D model of something like this is to scan it. You could do this yourself with a little bit of software and a video camera - there are even apps for your mobile phone to do it. I decided to send it off for scanning though. There are relatively affordable services for this.

 

Then you have a 3D file that can be printed. Since we are going to print this very tiny ~ 5mm tall, a good printer is required. I sent it to Shapeways for printing in "Frosted Extreme Detail".

 

 

 

A little cleanup and smoothing of the print and some painting under the microscope, and you can get a decent little figure.

 

 

Look for him in front of an n-scale pharmacy soon.

 

 

Outstanding!

[maihama eki]

I needed some artwork to hang on the walls inside a new Sankei kit that I am building. Impressionist masters provided the original artwork.

 

 

I found the painting images online and then some frame images. I printed the artwork and frames separately, cut out the centers of the frames and glued them together. This is another detail that perhaps only I will know is there.

 

Credit to Degas, Monet, Renoir, Cassatt, Seurat, and Van Gogh for the originals.

[gavino200]

I love it. I put pictures on interior walls sometimes. But I've never framed them. This is next level stuff!! I love it!