Shizuka - January 2014 Update

Shizuka is coming along. I've rethought a few things and it's all making more sense to me now.
For a minute, I was thinking that Shizuka was a larger city space. A huge area near the smaller tourist spot that shared the benefit of the fishing industry being so close. However, I've flipped that script a bit, making Shizuka a smaller city space that is there primarily due to the Temple and Village spaces - not the other way around. This is making this a bit easier from a "what I want" standpoint. I can have cool city things going on, but I don't have to make it a major city center with a huge populace. 




I had a larger, flyover station located dead center, but the way things play now is that it will be further out and to the back of the layout, if it remains at all. A much smaller modern station may take it's place and the flyover may get boxed for a future module.

I've set down the new way the streets will run, removing several Unitram panels and replacing them with a simple (placeholder) sheet of foam board. I was able to angle the buildings to emulate the new angled street and it's MUCH more interesting to me. The angle not only provides an interesting viewing arrangement, but gets away from the building area just being a series of squares.

The idea I had about having a track dedicated to shipping and another dedicated to the tram didn't work out. It might have if I put more effort in, but as it stands now, it's not going to happen. I'm ok with it based on the "what do you REALLY want?" mantra I've had of late. The mantra that reminded me that what I REALLY want to get into is the scenery and the train aspect - while fun - is secondary. So, I have several "dead" lines that look like they go somewhere, but really go nowhere. I'll flesh them out with a cool background that makes it look like the line goes off somewhere. I've seen it done and it's very effective.

And so, Shizuka is ready for things like the streets being worked on, sidewalks and other base items as next steps. I can't wait to get into the smaller detail work on it. It should be fun crafting little parking areas, vending machines and the like.

I'll be adding more advertising elements to the layout as I go as well.

Scenes like this will be hidden around the layout for sure. I love these little "slice of life" areas

Yes, this copter WILL be hung from the ceiling over the layout! :)

 Thanks for reading!