And so it begins...

[cteno4]

Nice squid, just need a bike rack and some bikes in it!

 

Jeff

[railsquid]

Nice squid, just need a bike rack and some bikes in it!

 

The logical space for that would be behind the station in the gap between the station and the retaining wall, but as it's barely visible from most angles I'll leave it empty for now.

 

Not that I'm short of improvements to be made:

 

- Fix station roof so light doesn't shine through the gaps

- repaint the benches a different brown (they're the same green shade as the railings now, which looks mildly odd)

- add signs denoting the taxi rank

- add the station name (need to make a custom sign)

- add a ticket inspector to the station

- add a telephone kiosk in front of the station (to fill the gap between the left-hand wall and the railside fence)

- add road markings

- add road signs

- add street lamps (I speculatively ordered some cheap ones from China which look like they would work nicely)

- add utility poles

- add people

 

The list is partially dependent on the arrival of the street lamps, as I'll need to be able to remove the section (it's not actually attached to the baseboard yet) to install wires (I suppose if I was really ambitious I could try using the utility poles to string wires, hah) so don't want to add anything easily damaged.

 

So little space, so much potential for detail...

[railsquid]

The list is partially dependent on the arrival of the street lamps,

 

Wow, Ebay informs me they've already been dispatched. I'm not placing too high hopes on these as "China" and "cheap", but they look a bit like the kind of slightly clunky ones typical of shotengai. Which is the next project - the road will continue behind the camera, with a line of Tomytec's best grotty ekimae buildings on one side. Also a small bus station, unfortunately due to lack of space passengers will have to walk a bit from the station (mind you not entirely implausible). Hmm, and if lampposts in the shotengai, I should really add little flags to each one to denote whatever event is coming up etc...

[railsquid]

Street lamps still on the slow boat from China.

 

Unfortunately due to lack of space passengers will have to walk a bit from the station

 

In the mean time the short bus has arrived at the new bus stop. The short bus is short enough that it could plausibly turn around in the space available, assisted by an old guy with a whistle and an illuminated baton.

 

Visitors to the station will also find a map showing the local attractions.

Edited October 15, 2015 by railsquid

[JR 500系]

Nice! A good idea... How about getting a bus turn-table? It seriously looks VERY difficult to turn around even with an old man with a whistle and light saber...

 

 

[railsquid]

Not enough space...

 

[railsquid]

Construction team still hard at work (some of them at least)...

 

... concrete still drying...

 

[JR 500系]

That's looking really nice~ Can I ask what is that material you use for the ballast (Concrete)?

[railsquid]

The road surface is just 3mm Tamiya foam board painted with very lightly diluted grey acrylic paint (the kind which comes in tubes). I was actually just going to use that as an undercoat to disguise the white foam board, but it looked good enough to pass as a road surface. I'm sure there are better ways - I read an article in a Japanese magazine about a very nice looking urban diorama, I can't remember the exact technique described but it involved seven layers of something, which looked excellent but when you have a small baby in the house, you need all the short-cuts you can get ;).

 

The ballast is a mixture of Tomytec, Kato (actually Woodland Scenics) and some small Japanese manufacture whose name I forget, can look up if interested.

[railsquid]

Concrete has dried, taxi has made a break for it. The bus driver is still MIA, presumed drinking (green) tea or nasty can coffee from a nearby vending machine.

 

[railsquid]

Here's a better version of the preceding picture (I realised I've hit the limits of auto mode on the camera for close-up work0:

 

[katoftw]

A the bus driver is still missing?  Is there a Sake Brewery close by?

[railsquid]

Investigations are on-going. I'm sure there's an innocent explanation.

 

Meanwhile I must say I'm beginning to appreciate these Tomytec vehicles.

 

[JR 500系]

Very nice! Will you be doing some markings for the road? They look pretty bare at the moment...

[railsquid]

Yup, and street lights, and traffic lights, and a fence between the railway and the road, and more detail on the buildings, and lights in the buildings, and miscellaneous street furnitures, and people... Anyone want to look after a small but active baby for a couple of weeks to let me get on with this? ;)

 

Actually I did spend my cycle trip today looking at street markings, just thinking about what I need to add and how best to do it. Which is where photos like this come in very handy as they provide a nice eye-level view and help give an idea of what to add.

[kvp]

These scenes are very nicely detailed and i would really like to know how did you build the sidewalks since i also used some foam boards as street surface (still unpainted after nearly a year), but i couldn't decide how to make the sidewalks . For the bus, i'm sure there is a way to just reverse out of the station parking area as soon as the driver gets sober enough.

[railsquid]

These scenes are very nicely detailed and i would really like to know how did you build the sidewalks since i also used some foam boards as street surface (still unpainted after nearly a year), but i couldn't decide how to make the sidewalks .

 

The pavements (hey, I'm British ;) ) in the station area are made from strips of 0.5mm Tamiya "Pla Plate"; in the town area (e.g. the photo above) they're TGW paving strips (which I discovered last week), product code LA-81, which are embossed with paving stone detail. I haven't measured the thickness but it's certainly close to 0.5mm. Both painted a very light grey.

 

One thing that annoys me about a lot of Japanese layouts are the very high pavement edges, e.g. from the Tomytec and Greenmax kits; anyway I'm quite surprised that the above solutions seem to work pretty well, even in close-up.

[cteno4]

Squid,

 

Looking very nice! Just have to train the squidlette to paint road lines! Some tiny little brushes for those tiny little Hands!

 

I expect that tomytec makes the bases so tall with the edge frame is to keep them from warping too much. They figure you will build the roadway and pavements up to the proper height in front. At leas most all the tomytec said are pretty standard in height! But hey in Japan you will always find the odd things like one building 1' higher set than the ones around it!

 

Check out nail pin tape for marking lines, simple and fast to play with.

 

http://www.ebay.com/itm/S69B-2-Pcs-Black-White-Striping-Tape-Self-Sticker-Nail-Art-/131603314653?hash=item1ea42b37dd:g:OQ0AAOSwQPlV9lSY

 

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Beauty-16-Pure-Colors-Rolls-20M-Striping-Tapes-Nail-Art-Line-Decoration-Stickers-/271799725466?var=570625628941&hash=item3f4886ad9a:m:m6Q8iZ_rZ-ssYWGvir3pGMA

 

Pure yellow (non metallic) is getting harder to find now though.

 

To make dashed lines just lay down a stripe and make yourself a little template/jig to cut the tape at appropriate places and pull off the in between bits. Best to hit the whole road with a shot of dull coat in the end, seals everything up and knocks it back to that dull roadway look. Bit of weathering powder here and there then or folks have used dilute watercolor washes to get road wear look. Some have used a toy car (like a tomica) with thenrightnspaced wheels and run the car is some weathering powder and the roll the car back and forth along the lanes to get those tire wear marks as well.

 

Also handy masking tape if you go to masking and painting lines. It's like the tamya masking tape, but way cheaper. Not quite as good but for simple tasks like this it works well.

 

http://www.ebay.com/itm/17m-White-Stripe-AD-Tape-Roll-Nail-Art-Edge-IC-Guide-Tips-DIY-Sticker-0-5cm-1-2-/252036169573?var=550895394000&hash=item3aae86bf65:m:mL6cilHJEJLS_vYV9wjLt0g

 

A set of burnishes comes in handy to get the tape joints and edges down well

 

http://www.ebay.com/itm/5X2WAYS-NAIL-ART-DOTTING-PENS-TERRIFIC-VALUE-MEET-YOUR-NEEDS-CREDITABLE-SELLER-/171946101844?hash=item2808c94c54:g:6m8AAOSw0HVWA6nD

 

Cheers

 

Jeff

Edited October 18, 2015 by cteno4

[cteno4]

One things with sidewalks is its one of those tradeoff in modeling. When you look at them up close at 1/150 they need to be thin, like 0.5-1mm high (scale 3-6") to look right with people around them. But when you look at them from the usual viewing distance in a layout of 1-3' (150-450' scale) they tend to look funny or not there right when done to prototypical height. Partly because your eye doesn't pick up the 1mm edge height at a distance and that curb edge is etched into our memory. This is due to our minds eye usually seeing curbs at human interaction distances of 5-50' and usually not really registering (i.e. Stored memory for) them at 150' plus. So to look right at regular viewing distances they look better at closer to 2mm high, but they then look silly close up! Tradeoffs!

 

One trick to help this is to darken the edge of the prototypical height sidewalk a bit. Use a darker shade of the top coat or give the edge just a little sepia India ink wash. This makes there be a little contrast line at the edge of the sidewalk for the eye to register the edge and also many times the curb edge is stained and dirty different from the top anyway. Those gray graphic drawing markers work well here as well.

 

Cheers

 

Jeff

[railsquid]

Squid,

 

Looking very nice! Just have to train the squidlette to paint road lines! Some tiny little brushes for those tiny little Hands!

 

I expect that tomytec makes the bases so tall with the edge frame is to keep them from warping too much. They figure you will build the roadway and pavements up to the proper height in front. At leas most all the tomytec said are pretty standard in height! But hey in Japan you will always find the odd things like one building 1' higher set than the ones around it!

 

Yeah, I understand why the base is there, though leaving aside warping there is some variation, some of the newer style ones have thicker bases (not talking about the buildings designed to fit with the bus/tram system either). Just having spent some time examining pictures of other layouts to see how pavements are done, I was suprised how some otherwise nice layouts have pavements which would put most of their inhabitants in hospital with leg injuries. :unsure:

 

One things with sidewalks is its one of those tradeoff in modeling. When you look at them up close at 1/150 they need to be thin, like 0.5-1mm high (scale 3-6") to look right with people around them. But when you look at them from the usual viewing distance in a layout of 1-3' (150-450' scale) they tend to look funny or not there right when done to prototypical height. Partly because your eye doesn't pick up the 1mm edge height at a distance and that curb edge is etched into our memory. This is due to our minds eye usually seeing curbs at human interaction distances of 5-50' and usually not really registering (i.e. Stored memory for) them at 150' plus. So to look right at regular viewing distances they look better at closer to 2mm high, but they then look silly close up! Tradeoffs!

 

 

By themselves the pavements do look a bit "flat", but adding the typical "edging" decorations (guard rails etc.) brings them to life, at least in my eyes. But I can see how a higher pavement would work better in a street further away from the edge of the layout lined with taller buildings. 

 

Anyway, yes, tradeoffs... I just pretend the code 80 track looks realistic and for sanity's sake concentrate on the lesser discrepencies between model and reality in an attempt to fool the eye ;). Great fun anyway.

[railsquid]

Squid,

 

Looking very nice! Just have to train the squidlette to paint road lines! Some tiny little brushes for those tiny little Hands!

(...)

Check out nail pin tape for marking lines, simple and fast to play with.

 

http://www.ebay.com/itm/S69B-2-Pcs-Black-White-Striping-Tape-Self-Sticker-Nail-Art-/131603314653?hash=item1ea42b37dd:g:OQ0AAOSwQPlV9lSY

 

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Beauty-16-Pure-Colors-Rolls-20M-Striping-Tapes-Nail-Art-Line-Decoration-Stickers-/271799725466?var=570625628941&hash=item3f4886ad9a:m:m6Q8iZ_rZ-ssYWGvir3pGMA

 

Pure yellow (non metallic) is getting harder to find now though.

 

To make dashed lines just lay down a stripe and make yourself a little template/jig to cut the tape at appropriate places and pull off the in between bits. Best to hit the whole road with a shot of dull coat in the end, seals everything up and knocks it back to that dull roadway look. Bit of weathering powder here and there then or folks have used dilute watercolor washes to get road wear look. Some have used a toy car (like a tomica) with thenrightnspaced wheels and run the car is some weathering powder and the roll the car back and forth along the lanes to get those tire wear marks as well.

 

Also handy masking tape if you go to masking and painting lines. It's like the tamya masking tape, but way cheaper. Not quite as good but for simple tasks like this it works well.

 

http://www.ebay.com/itm/17m-White-Stripe-AD-Tape-Roll-Nail-Art-Edge-IC-Guide-Tips-DIY-Sticker-0-5cm-1-2-/252036169573?var=550895394000&hash=item3aae86bf65:m:mL6cilHJEJLS_vYV9wjLt0g

 

A set of burnishes comes in handy to get the tape joints and edges down well

 

http://www.ebay.com/itm/5X2WAYS-NAIL-ART-DOTTING-PENS-TERRIFIC-VALUE-MEET-YOUR-NEEDS-CREDITABLE-SELLER-/171946101844?hash=item2808c94c54:g:6m8AAOSw0HVWA6nD

 

 

Thanks, must check out the local 100 yen shop for nail painting supplies ;).

 

I have a bunch of Japanese road marking transfers, half the battle is deciding how to place them in a realistic manner, though luckily it's easy enough to check out prototypes ;).

[railsquid]

Blast from the past...

[railsquid]

Meanwhile no rest for the wicked... as the shadows draw longer, work commences on the stabling/fuelling point at the far end of the layout. Being Japan, space is at a premium even in the boonies, so it's hardly surprising that the rise behind the railway has been built on with housing, though the contractor has yet to finish the access road and embankment. It's anticipated the houses will be highly sought-after by railway enthusiasts, as they afford a grandstand view over important operational areas.

[JR 500系]

I like the staggering of those houses. Look really nice and a good idea for me to copy...  :P

 

I like the choice of your vehicles too, the cement truck and the bus looks to be in the same era ~~

[railsquid]

I like the staggering of those houses. Look really nice and a good idea for me to copy...  :P

 

Feel free, I drew the inspiration from Japan anyway. The "good" thing about Japan of course is that this kind of space usage is totally realistic...

 

I like the choice of your vehicles too, the cement truck and the bus looks to be in the same era ~~

 

 

Probably are. Unfortunately I tend to choose vehicles the way I choose my trains, i.e. because I like them and/or they were cheap and I like them ;). The bus does suit the bus terminal though :).