Neon Noir Designs

[Kamome442]

Coming Soon

 

End of the month means pay day and the chance to buy some new items for the shop. I placed an order for the following:

 

American style N-scale tree grates:

 

UK & ROI style N-gauge fences:

 

UK style OO gauge tree grates:

 

Coming Not So Soon

 

I also placed an order for what I hope is the final revision of the fire escapes.

 

The etch is drawn up but I just want to check the fit and finish following the last set of alterations. If all goes well I will order the version for sale next month.

Also on that etch is the first test of some American fire escapes:

 

I know these are something that is already available but I think I can add some variety and choice with my own designs. I am also working on some half landing Japanese fire escapes.

Joe

Edited March 2 by Kamome442

[Kamome442]

I placed an order for following Guard rail fence designs today:

 

 

They should be be available at the end of the month.

I will also be placing the order fire escapes in the next few days.

[Kamome442]

Order placed!

 

[Kamome442]

As well as the fire escapes I was able to get the production version of some new pipe barriers done and ordered today. 

That should keep me busy for a while!

[Martijn Meerts]

Since I'm not building N-scale things at the moment, I can't really use any of this, but a lot of them look so nice that I've been tempted to get some stuff 😄

 

[cteno4]

Joe’s etches are just total awesome sauce!

 

jeff

[Kamome442]

Thank you @Martijn Meerts I am going to be releasing the animal barriers in HO if that is any use to you. They are drawn up and ready to go. I have spent way too much on etches this month so I will order them at the beginning of May once I have been paid.

 

I also have some test samples for N and HO manhole covers seeing as I have been promising them for ages, they just take ever such a long time to draw up. 

My current plan is to produce a large sheet with a mixture of generic looking covers in different sizes and shapes. Then to offer separate smaller sheets with local/area spacific designs on.

 

These are the designs I am testing in HO, not all of them will work but I hope to get at least 6 that I can release and then rework the others.

 

Joe

[Martijn Meerts]

I'll have to see what works. For now I'm still mostly building rolling stock, so I can determine the minimum radius especially for the JNR branch line part. I'm also not quite sure what I would need once I start building scenery 🙂

 

Manhole cover 1 sure is generic enough to be usable I believe.

 

[Kamome442]

Not Very Clear

 

I was thinking more generic than cover 1, sorry I wasn't very clear in my last post.

Working on Yurakucho most of the covers I have drawn up very plain indeed. See below:

 

While not very interesting they are a lot more common than the decorative covers and possibly more useful.

I have included a couple of these designs in 1:150 on Etched Parts 1, I really need to redraw them for 1:80 along with road signs at some point.

There are also the big lids, that have a standard 60cm cover mounted within them for inspections.

 

I was thinking of making a set of these with holes in the middle so that you can choose the cover you want in the middle. They are sometimes mismatched.

 

Quick note

The UK and US tree grates are now available on Etsy:

 

https://www.etsy.com/uk/listing/1697610110

 

 

https://www.etsy.com/uk/listing/1697233706

 

 

I will add them to BOOTH later today.

Joe

[Martijn Meerts]

Ah yeah... I'll definitely be interested in some things once I really get started. Of course, my H0 is 1/87, but for these kinda small things I don't think the difference between 1/80 and 1/87.

 

I am still also doing some N-scale though, probably mainly Enoden T-Trak for now. For that of course I could use a bunch of stuff. But it's all slow going at the moment 🙂

 

[Kamome442]

Regarding the manhole covers would it be worth me creating a printable set of the painted covers similar to the roadsigns.

A lot of the designs would be near impossible to paint accurately however if they are printed on waterslide transfer paper it would just be a case of cutting them out.

An example of how they would look using these 5 designs:

 

Printed at 1:150:

 

 

Printed at 1:80:

 

 

The designs may will need to be optimised for smaller scales but I should be able to create a sheets at whatever scale anyone needs.

 

In other news I finally found a squid fence in the wild.

 

 

I have seen the wave fence before but with no details about its location. This picture was labelled as 'guardrail in Squid Town'. The reference on the picture suggested it was take in Nakadomari, Aomori. I haven't managed to find an exact location.

 

I also found a partial picture of these rather lovely Igloo design from Tatooine Yokote.

 

 

Joe

[maihama eki]

Maybe it would be worthwhile to do those manhole covers with the pattern half etched (if possible?) and provide the artwork sheet. Then, you would have the option to try to paint them or apply a water slide decal. With a good solvent decal setting solution, thin decal film, and careful placement, you might be able to get the decal to settle into the half etch and look like paint. To align the decal with the etched manhole cover, some sort of alignment feature on the decal and etch could be provided - perhaps a small notch in the outer ring at 12 o’clock.

 

Either way would be challenging at n-scale, but I would give it a try.

 

and, love the Tatooine rail!

Edited April 21 by maihama eki

[Kamome442]

I like that idea @maihama eki I will test that when I get the next set of samples. If lightly pressed in place the transfer would presumably pick up the texture of the etch beneath.

[cteno4]

While I love the idea of decals on top of etched metal manhole covers, it’s just not working at N scale. Even if the prototype etched depth of the manhole patter is 1cm the scale etched depth is the .067mm which is nothing. So at N scale would be best to just drop decals or printed manhole covers on your streets. Even at 6” viewing distances you are just not going to see this depth detail.

 

jeff

[Kamome442]

That is fair @cteno4 you are absolutely right. 

I will have a go at a sheet of printable manhole covers on proper transfer paper and post photos of the results. 

If they are any good I will have a go at making an A4 sheet to download. 

I like the idea of not having to faff around sending off test etches and waiting weeks to find out if worked 😆

 

[cteno4]

I will temper my above comment that we do a lot of details off scale to see them at any distance and make them look right to the viewer. Since we usually look at model scenes at least a foot and usually 2 feet or more, we are at like 150’-300’ scale feet away. At these distances are visual memory is very different than it is in our normal interactions with our environment at a few feet to a few dozen feet so our expectations on details we see and how we see them will change. Our field of view also gets way messed up when viewing a model and thus warps how we see details in the model compared to our visual memories of looking at the real world. We hold a vast data set of visual memories of then real world around us to help us to quickly process our visual input and to calculate faster what we are going to do physically to interact with that world.

 

I’ve used this example a lot of sidewalk height. They should be 1mm high at the very most to ne at scale. But when you look at 1mm model sidewalks at a couple of feet away our mind says something is wrong as the vertical height disappears. Make the sidewalk 2mm high and then it looks right at a distance, but now the sidewalks are practically knee high to walkers and wrong up close. It’s always a bit of a tradeoff.

 

This is because we have tons of very strong visual memory of sidewalks up close with us having to navigate them on foot and in cars all the time. Also up close in real life we look at them sideways so see the visual height much more side on, but when looking at a model scene we are almost always looking at the scene from a height as well as a distance so the at an oblique angle to the side of the sidewalk so its height is diminished visually. Also we usually don’t look or interact with a real life scene at greater distances of like 100m so we just don’t register these oddities, but when looking at a model we switch our brains into examining the scene and thus accentuating these oddities that our brain usually ignores as we may only interact with a distant scene looking for a particular thing like a shop or other specific thing and again our minds then ignore the details looking for a specific thing.

 

some of this can be be helped with coloration and contrasts to help visual details stand out a bit more at distance so when you study a model scene at a foot or two and thus help get us deal with seeing the things our visual memory is now expecting to see (but in real life at those distance we would not see much but just don’t remember those distance views much at all.

 

textures definitely fall into this category as at scale they are so minuscule they would not be visually discernible. Sand for instance is a really tough one and one that has that odd visual close memory attached. Even very corse sand in real life you can’t see the grains past a few feet away and it’s actually a blob of color with just a bit of texture and maybe color texture as well. At scale and at a bit of distance all that would be gone and it would be a pretty much uniform surface texture. But do a beach scene like that and our minds eye says tilt! But put down the finest sand you can find and our minds eye says “yes beach!” but up close you see the sun bathers are saying on a gravel beach!

 

In this case if the manhole covers I’m thinking a lot can be done with the printing to accentuate the details than you could ever do with a decal on top of a etched cover, I think the two are just going to fight too much and then look wrong. At 6mm across max I doubt decal softener will end up giving any real texture to the surface of the decal from the etches in the cover below. I worry even applying a decal to a road will make the decal stick up too much, but dull coat layer may fare it in well.

 

years  ago I printed a bunch of streets for my street car 25mm Ttrak modules. I was inspired by one of the forum members (I think in England) doing a terminus street scene for a small show layout and they had great success printing out their streets and adding tons of details, even tire and oil stains. My first round was simple and had a second round I started with with more detail, but never finished it, but I was amazed what could be done to accentuate details to get over the above dilemmas, just took a lot of experimenting. Road texture is another thing that is not 3D at scale at all by scale, but we again have a visual experience and expectations for it being there even at a distance and printed textures can help bridge this.

 

i find this fascinating that what we think we see and how we see it not perfect reality! This is one of the aspects I love to play with in modeling to mess with the viewer’s visual memory to your advantage and try to make them see things not really there.

 

cheers

 

jeff

[Kamome442]

A few new items added to both Booth (https://neonnoirdesigns.booth.pm/items) and Etsy this weekend.

New Japanese items on page one of Booth, UK fences on Page 5.

 

New Guard Rail Fences:https://www.etsy.com/uk/listing/1708416348

 

3 New Pipe Barriers added to the line up: https://www.etsy.com/uk/listing/1277143858

 

UK and Ireland Style Fences https://www.etsy.com/uk/listing/1714609299

[Kamome442]

New Barriers!

 

These all come with a set of waterslide transfers.

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

Etsy: https://www.etsy.com/uk/listing/1729586037

 

Just a word of warning the transfers are very very small.

Joe

[Kamome442]

Red or Blue?!

 

I will putting the first set of fire escapes up for sale in the next couple of weeks. I just need to order the packaging once pay day rolls around again.

 

I the mean time I have been working of the escapes with half landings. These are going be a little wider than the first set and not as steep. 

 

 

These steps are set at 46 degrees. I have been looking for examples of the steeper narrower 57 degree steps with a half landing but I haven't managed to find any. 

I have made these steps the same dimensions as the external steps I released at the beginning of the year. This means you can interchange parts from the two etches such as having a full length flight of stairs at the base of the escape:

 

 

I just need to work out how I am going to do the top landing. There are couple of options shown below:

 

 

The red steps make the most sense to me as you would be walking down to the next floor on the outside and it's less likely that someone would open a door in your face 🥴 That said from the examples I have looked at the blue version is slightly more common. Most of the blue examples I have seen do have supporting columns on the corners of the landings which might explain having steps leading down from the outer side of the landing. I have also seen some examples of the red style with a longer landing to attach to a post so maybe not:

 

 

The supporting columns would be easy to add with some styrene rods. Not all of the pictures I have seen have these supports when the landings are all fixed to the exterior of the building. If anyone is interested I could also make a version with the steps facing out from the building:

 

 

These would always have columns to support the half landing.

Please do let me know which style of landing you would like at the top and if you know of any steeper 57 degree stairs with half landings please do let me know.

Joe

 

[cteno4]

Looks great! I agree the red makes more sense!

 

jeff

[Kamome442]

Thanks jeff 👍

[Madsing]

Hi Joe,

This is one I like. Sleek, modern. There are only two support columns at the center, so they look lighter. I don't know the slope, though. How can you figure it out?

Btw, what is the distance between two storeys in your design?

Marc

 

  

[Kamome442]

Hi Marc,

 

I really like this style of stairs too. Like you say they have a sleek clean design.

 

I have yet to work out how to make these as an etch, I have an idea but I haven't tested it yet.

The design I based my steps on has separate landings with each flight of stairs dropped in the gap and bolted together, like this:

 

This was easy to turn into a net for etching as I could just use tabs on the steps that slot into holes on the landings:

 

The design you attached has the landing attached to the steps that is lowered onto some for of support such as an I-beam like this: 

 

I gives a really nice clean side without any visible joins. For etching it with the steps attached would mean something along these lines:

 

I have a feeling it would be easier to have the steps and sides as separate parts, I have yet to test my theory. If anyone has any novel way to make these easily I would love to hear from you.

 

I did't mention before but there is a 1.5mm gap in the middle so that you can have 2 posts between the steps not on the outside:

 

 

I agree it looks better that way, I like that it forms a series of triangles in the middle.

 

Just checked the drawings, there is 20mm between floors, which is probably a little too much. If I take two steps out it would bring it down to around 17mm if that would be better? I can adjust it to whatever height works best by altering the depth of each step and seeing as I don't own any ready made buildings I am not entirely sure if any standard floor height is used for models.

 

Regarding the slope I imagine from the height of the building it wouldn't be any steeper than 40 degrees, It could even be a 35.

This is a handy guide from the Building Standards Act.

Source: https://fujino-gyosei.jp/kaidanryokan/

 

Joe

[cteno4]

Joe,

 

This looks good with steps and platforms separate. But more assembly but easy to grow to what ever height. Also much more space effecient etches. Since these things are usually bolted/welded all over the place, not sure all of the are as clean as the ones in Marc’s photos anyway. Those ones look like they could take elephants!

 

I’ll see if I can get some various building floor heights measured from the usual suspects.

 

jeff

[Kamome442]

2 hours ago, cteno4 said:

I’ll see if I can get some various building floor heights measured from the usual suspects.

That would be very much appreciated jeff, thank you.