Neon Noir Designs

[Kamome442]

Quick update of the manhole covers. While I was printing the water slide transfers for the pipe barriers I added a few manhole covers to one of the sheets to see how they look. I will say now that they look much better real life than in the pictures and I did a terrible job of cutting them out so there is a little white around the edges.

1:80 version:

 

1:150 version:

 

I did a quick look for rub on transfer makers and oh wow the prices are insane! The best price I could find was £360 to make one A4 sheet (3 colours). I am sure there must be cheaper options out there.

 

I also wanted to share some test etches for new lids.

1:150 first:

 

Pretty happy with these, you can make out the little sailboats (left). 

Now over to 1:80 scale and boy did these come out well, the covers are 7.5mm across and you can even partially make out the word Hiroshima (top left):

 

 

 

 

 

[cteno4]

Nice joe! Maybe make the black out circle a bit larger diameter so you have some black to trim off once decal in place on the cover? I wonder if close cutting then last bit use fine sandpaper. But it must be tough holding a 4mm n scale manhole!

 

so this was a decal onto an etched cover or blank cover? If on an etched cover did you try and micro sol on it to relax the decal down onto the etched details. I’m guessing this is getting to the very limit of decals and the surface relief! Also inkjet decal paper does come in several weights and bes on small stuff is the thinnest. All the laser decal I’ve used seems all to be the same thickness and a tad thicker than the thin inkjet decal paper. Toner added as well makes them come out much heavier/thicker than inkjet and they don’t lay down as well with micro sol I think due the harder toner not being as flexible.

 

yes the runoff transfers use a dye sublimation system to print them and print white too, but are very pricy machines.

 

i did have a rub off transfer system that printed toner onto a transfer sheet. You then applied a sheet with transfer adhesive to it and pulled off the backing. You then had to cut carefully around your decal area to cut it out and stick it onto your model and remove the transfer backing. One issue was it’s easy to get a halo of transfer adhesive around the toner of the decal and that can very quickly suck up dust bits if not sealed up right away with a dull coat. Also same issue of clear decals that white is not printed so will be a hole in your decal so has to go on white if you want it white and best to remove the transfer adhesive in that area as well. It was a bit of a mess but worked and I had one side of a tama train done as a test on a blank Tomytec portram I had and Tomytec announced their tama train so I decided better use if time on other projects and jsut bought the Tomytec model! Not sure if that system would be viable for sale though.

 

cheers,

 

jeff

[Madsing]

These etches look fantastic!

I use a belt hole punch for cutting round shapes. This one https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1005001834900160.html makes 1.5, 2, 2.5, 3, 3.5 or 4mm holes. I use it for making road signals. It is still difficult to properly align the tool with the drawing, but the cut is perfect.

 

Marc

 

[Madsing]

I have measured the height between two floors of some of my Kato, Tomix, Greenmax buildings.

 

Tomix it's 20mm:

 

Kato it's 22mm:

 

Greenmax I think it's even a bit more than 22mm.

Given that, I would not reduce the height to 17mm, but deciding between 20 and 22mm is difficult. Some of the buildings also have higher lower floors.

 

Marc

 

 

[Kamome442]

@cteno4 This was just a transfer applied onto the road. I haven't tried placing one over an etched cover yet. I was rushing and could have done a better job of cutting and trimming the cover however it wouldn't hurt to make the black boarder a little thicker. It might work better on clear transfer paper, then you could get away with not cutting the circle perfectly. You probably could sand or file the edge carefully while it still on the backing paper. I will have another go at the weekend and try to cut more carefully. I will also try to apply one over an etched cover. The next time I have something to print on clear transfer paper I will add a few covers to test them. 

 

@Madsing The 1:80 covers came out great, I will have to make them available. I have not had much success with sales in this scale that said I have only really scaled up the pipe barriers, I should probably offer some more items.

Thank you so much for taking the time to post pictures of buildings to show the dimensions. You have no idea how helpful that is.

I am happy to offer the steps in different heights. It really won't take long to alter them. Below are the adjusted steps top 20mm, bottom 22mm:

 

The steps are spaced slightly differently, and the 22mm gains an extra step.

Also for reference here is the 22mm height comparing a 35 degree (left) angle and a 46 degree (right):

 

At some point I would like to offer add on packs with alternative landings and steps to allow more variety between buildings. 

 

[Kamome442]

A Possible New Project

 

Now that I have a handle on designing fire escapes I have been thinking about another project to work on. I would quite like to have a go at a range of arcade roofs. They are something that feels very Japanese and I think they would add a nice little detail to a street scene. I have been looking around for some nice examples they seen to range in size form moderate to monstrous. I am certainly happy to have a go at a few moderate designs to start off with.

 

I have not done much work on this so far as I am not totally sure it something that would be popular. I know that Tomytec offered an arcade section so I would want to make sure that I am offering something a little different. My feeling at the moment is to just offer the roof as an etch along with templates for cutting all the cladding to the fit correctly. It would be very much a kit that needs additional work I am not even planning on including legs, at the moment, as the heights appear to vary greatly but include tabs at the bottom of the roof to slot legs into. 

 

I found some lovely pictures of an arcade in Sakaide of a section that had all the cladding removed so you could see the internal structure. I was able to use this to draw up a rough idea I what I am thinking:

 

One thing I have noticed is that most examples have at least a catwalk to service the roof and many also carry utilities above the street. This was case for the example above. It also had raised sections for crossing roads which look rather cool. It seems like something that could be expanded upon with a basic pack that has a straight section then other packs that offer raised sections, wind breakers for open sections, junctions or bends.

 

This is the section I drew up using the above design:

 

 

I included the raised section, catwalks and masts for utilities. I just find these structures interestingly ugly (in a good way). 

 

I would like to hear your thoughts if you think it something that you would interested in.

 

Joe

 

 

[Martijn Meerts]

Too much cool stuff 😄

 

Since I've sort of picked up the N project again, I may need to order some things at some point ...

 

[Kamome442]

Thank you, @Martijn Meerts

[Kamome442]

A Few More Items Ready to Order

 

The original sets of external stairs, which I was selling at half price due to a small error in their design, are sold out in some styles. So I will be ordering a new sheet with tabs orientated correctly. I figured I could add 4 more designs to etch this time. The new designs look like this:

 

 

I will introduce the next 4 Guard Rail fences the coming months. The most recent set did not sell very well, maybe I have saturated the market a little?! Oops.

Oh well, I really enjoy making them so I will carry on regardless. The next designs look like this:

 

Finally I am making up a test batch of ready made Rabbit barriers, seen here enjoying their first coat of paint:

 

I am planning a small run of the most popular designs. I am not sure how much they will be at the moment (hopefully around £2 per barrier) or even if I am going to sell them as an individual barrier (ie 2 rabbits connected with pipes) or as sets of 4 or 5 barriers. The batch above are for me to test different techniques for painting the eyes and nose. I need to find a process that is reliable and repeatable. 

 

If they do sell I will make a batches of elephants and dolphins (they both use the same colour), followed by either ducks or frogs.

 

Joe

 

 

 

Edited May 24 by Kamome442

[Kamome442]

Messing Up and Fixing it Again.

 

Yikes! My apologies I hadn't realised it had been quite so long since my last update.

 

Grinding to a Halt.

Firstly I made a couple stupid mistakes that has slowed everything down for new items. 

 

The first error was my order for fire escapes. I decided at the last minute to change the thickness of the metal from 0.1mm to 0.13mm. 

I thought it would make for a better quality product, what didn't even enter into my mind at the time was the parts all slot together and I had just changed the tolerances from the prototype without testing it first. Long story short I ended up with a pile etches that were pretty much useless. It was such a novice error I muttered a fair few expletives to myself when I realised.

 

The second was an error with numbering on the 1:220 scale ruler. I had made up a bunch of rulers at the same time and unfortunately I had not checked over my work properly. I was contacted by a customer to let me know I had messed up the numbers on both the metric and imperial measurements. 

At this point everything else needed to stop while I fixed the design and replaced all the defective rulers I had already sent out.

I have now received the replacement rulers and this week I will be start sending them out.

 

Finally, I noticed that I was not making any profit from sales on Etsy for June and July. When I looking into what was going on I realised an advertising fee was been taken. This meant on an etch costing £2.50 for I was receiving around 35p. Considering the etch cost around £1.30 to make something was going very wrong. After checking Etsy's message board and speaking to some other sellers I found out that Etsy would take an advertising fee on sales made by a buyer clicked on to your page from an external link that they had sent out. This used to be an opt in option but at some point it was switched to an opt out option. I managed to find the toggle for this in a sub menu and flicked it off, since then it seems to be resolved.

 

A Sliver Lining 

All the above sadly meant that I really didn't have the money to order any new items throughout most of August. 

That said things often work out in ways you do not expect. I ended up having a lengthy conversation with the gentleman that spotted the error in the ruler and we talked about how to make a better product. He asked if the ruler could be a little thicker. The maximum thickness I can go too is determined to the spacing between the slots which needs to 1.5 times larger than the thickness of the metal. Looking at the spacing on all rulers I was able to change them from 0.2mm to 0.3mm.

The other thing he asked for was a larger ruler. This was something I was not going to consider, etching is expensive and I felt the cost of a full 30cm would not be good value. I quoted him a price around £12-£15 which he was happy to pay. However while drawing up the larger design I realised by going to a larger 30x30cm sheet I could bring the price down by splitting the sheet 50:50 between large and small rulers. 

I had to drop the ruler to 28cm to allow as needed to leave a 1mm boarder but I was able to get the price down to £7.50.

This week I have ordered a sheet with larger 1:50 scale rulers and they should be ready by the end of the month.

 

The other bonus with messing up the fire escapes was that it allowed me to incorporate the information @Madsing kindly provided. The original design had a floor spacing or around 21mm. I was able to refine this to produce two versions 20mm and 22mm. I ordered these earlier this month and they arrive at the weekend.

 

New Stock

So the fire Escapes wend on sale today they can be found here:

Booth: https://neonnoirdesigns.booth.pm/items/6105591

Etsy: https://www.etsy.com/uk/listing/1795519241

 

There is 4 sets of stairs per etch. The finished staircase will look like this:

 

I have also updated the first 4 Guard rail fence designs to the larger sheet size. available here:

Booth: https://neonnoirdesigns.booth.pm/items/6105596

Etsy: https://www.etsy.com/uk/listing/1504780321

 

Fingers crossed it will be plain sailing going forward.

Joe

[Kamome442]

Wait There's More

 

1:80 Manhole covers

Along with the rulers and fire escapes I also included some 1:80 scale manhole covers.

There are 10 designs, each etch has has 24 identical covers. I only had the space for 2 of each design on the etch so I have only made them available on Booth for now:

https://neonnoirdesigns.booth.pm/items/6099745

 

The cherry blossom design has already sold out but all other designs are available. The benefit of a larger scale is the amount of detail you can fit on a 7.5mm cover:

 

If anyone who uses Etsy wants them please let me know and I will make listing for them. Otherwise I will wait until I have more of them in stock.

 

1:160 US Fire Escapes

I was also able to include the first test etch for a US version of the fire escape. Now that I have had a chance to make them up I can see a few areas to improve however for a first attempt I am really rather pleased with how they turned out.

 

1:80 and/or 1:87 Fences

I wanted to see what a scaled up fence would look like so I added a couple of those too:

 

They do look rather nice, I am going to try a small range of small range of these to see if there is any interest. I plan to use the sales numbers of the N scale versions not work out which designs stand the best chance of being successful. If there is a particular design you would be interested in do let me know I will make sure to include them. 

They do take up a lot space so there will be far fewer on an etch, here is a 1:80 scale etch as an example:

 

[cteno4]

Joe, very nice! Sorry for the setbacks but sounds like it was just one step back and now two forward!

 

looking forward to the 28cm 1/150 ruler. The small ones are nice and I usually only use a scale ruler on small stuff (bigger stuff I usually cheat and use the 2mm/ft kludge), but with my huge mitts a larger ruler is actually easier for me to manipulate. Will be nice to have both.

 

cheers

 

jeff

[Kamome442]

Thank you @cteno4 I have been doing a lot of drawing up during the down time so I have no shortage of new products to order as and when.

I gave the layout of the rulers a slight refresh to give them a slightly cleaner look. The larger version is rather lovely 🙂

 

I paid for them at the beginning of the week so they should be around 1-2 weeks away.

There were also two other etches in that order, the first is a redesign of the external stairs.

This batch will be 20mm high and will now come as a set of 6. The etch will look like this:

There are the 4 original designs:

 

There will also be 4 new designs:

 

The second etch is the next set of N scale fences. The last two batches didn't sell very well and I was wondering if this was because the unique designs are too limited geographically. I have decided to test this by making this set as generic as I can. There will be 6 designs:

 

Sets 33 and 35 will feature just straight bars. 34 and 36 has the same bars but with end details on either one or both ends. Each set can be used independently or by combining corresponding sets you can make longer sections of fence with end details. 

 

Set 37 and 38 have been long overdue, the latter was one of the first designs I drew up however I could not find any images of the shorter sections anywhere. I have been regularly searching social media and finally managed to find what I needed.

 

Finally, regarding the HO fences. The three best sellers in N are these:

I have the artwork scaled up and ready to go, I will probably place an order for them in October or November. I am more than happy to change one of the designs or add another if anyone has design they are looking for, just let me know.

Joe

 

[maihama eki]

I would buy some of the 1/80 manhole covers from Etsy - mostly to play with painting them.

Edited September 23 by maihama eki

[Kamome442]

Thank you for letting me know @maihama eki

I have created a listing for these on Etsy: https://www.etsy.com/uk/listing/1798973053

 

[Kamome442]

New Items

 

The updated sets of stairs are now available:

 

Booth: https://neonnoirdesigns.booth.pm/items/6105591

Etsy: https://www.etsy.com/uk/listing/1680681645

 

There are 6 stairs on each etch. The steps be attached to the left of the right side of the landings by removing additional tabs. There is only one design per etch.

 

28cm rulers in 4 new scales are also available:

 

Booth: https://neonnoirdesigns.booth.pm/items/6164723

Etsy: https://www.etsy.com/uk/listing/1646349756

 

[cteno4]

Thanks Joe, those stairs will be useful detail additions to many small Tomytec buildings here and there.

 

larger ruler will also be nice in my big mitts!

 

jeff

[Kamome442]

I had a little time yesterday so I figured I would made a very quick little diorama for product photography.

 

It is nothing more than a piece of grey card with a white line and small holes to place fences. I just placed the wall at the back to frame it a little better, it is a Baiodo kit not my own work. Hopefully I can make the pictures on my sites a little more appealing and give customers a better idea of what the finished products will look like. I can make other strips up for tree grates, tactiles etc.

I can also have a little fun, as long as the sun is out!.

 

I am working on the half landing stairs at the moment, one thing I have noticed from @Madsing's pictures the lower floors are sometimes higher.

I assume this doesn't matter as it would appear an extra flight of stairs keeps everything aligned.

Credit: Madsing

 

[cteno4]

Excellent idea Joe! love the wall and the shadows. I definitely think this will help sales past those who are already familiar with these sorts of rails.
 

Maybe try plopping down just a high quality figure and/or a car? Not much else just something that says people side and car side. Sometimes adding a few scenery cues will trip folks mind’s eye into gear and let them imagine it in their scene settings.

 

jeff

[Kamome442]

Good thinking, I should have said I was planning to add a figure for scale. I hadn't considered adding a car that would put something in front of the fence and centre it in the scene.

[cteno4]

You got it! Many years ago a couple of times I got to work with a product photographer on some of our exhibit models. It was amazing with both the lighting person who used all these wild things to light the scene (like hanging mobile kookalorises that would slowly mottle and change the light brightness and tone) to the photographer who carefully layered the scene so that the main focus for the shot was visually centered, but never perfectly centered in the shot. First time I got a really practical lesson in asymmetry in design and how it could draw the eye thru a shot visually.
 

jeff

[cteno4]

Just got my big 1/150 ruler and it’s great! Fits my big mitts really well. Nice product Joe.

 

jeff

[Kamome442]

22 hours ago, cteno4 said:

Just got my big 1/150 ruler and it’s great! Fits my big mitts really well. Nice product Joe.

 

jeff

Glad to hear it arrived safely 👍

[cteno4]

Those boxes are perfect, they survive the mail well.

 

jeff

[Kamome442]

That's good to know, thank you jeff