Wednesday, February 19, 2014

Temple Hill Progress


Well, I was rolling on Temple Hill for a minute, but forward progress has stopped for the time being. I might get going again this week.

I had the base down and, after fixing the damage done by using the wrong adhesive on the foam and having some of it eaten away :::grin::: , I got to work on the build up and hill creation.



I went with the sculpting plaster option. It seemed like the right stuff for this part of the project. I had used other plasters in the past, but this was a lot more fun to work with.








It basically ends up like oatmeal paste - rough and gritty, but easy to lay down and build up when mixed properly. Mixing more was easy as well. There wasn't much I needed to work out there.










After I got that set in place, I started sculpting stairs and ramps with clay. I had some left over from my shelf layout project and thought it might do the trick for the roadway ramp and ramps up the hillside to the various levels of temple hill. I'm sure there are other ways to do this, but I went with this before and it seemed to work out, so I went with the option again.



The hardest thing about this for me was getting the slope of the roadway correct and working out the scale of the steps in areas were people would be walking. I think I got close and whatever isn't working can be re-done and reset with the use of paint or scenic materials. (Yes, I've done that before as well!)

I painted the areas where dirt and foliage were going to be placed to get my base "dirt" color. I'll go over the whole of it with scenic material and the like, but I had to get rid of the pink color. This is standard stuff, but it's always one of those steps I see left out from time to time and I thought it was worth mentioning.



I've had some folks ping me who are "flying under the radar" in model rail circles. The stay silent and tinker with their projects and don't put themselves out there for fear of being snickered at by the more "professional" hobby folks.  I say, put yourself out there! I do it. I am FAR from pro and hack/slash my way through many projects and have fun doing it. The best part about doing is learning from what you've actually done - making note of what worked and did not work for future reference.

So, as I continue to stumble through, I have a lot of fun seeing things progress. The next big thing to get through is getting some layers going on my layout. Raised layers for certain areas. I just need to work out the base structure for it to achieve the look I want.


Kobe, Japan


Mobile Suit sightings in Soyokaze and Shizuka


I used to be WAY into anime. Now I dabble, but I still have many, many anime toys and figures from back in the day when I was buying for retail therapy. :::grin:::  I dropped a lot of coin on these items. I have boxes and boxes packed with care.

Well, I was looking over my Instagram follows and saw a few posts from a guy who goes by HEATH13. He did some great Godzilla shots with his N scale items. I thought it was time to do another Gundam shoot with mine.










The scale is close with the Gundam MS figures I had. I think they run around 1/144, which is pretty close. So I broke them out and took some quick shots between meetings and production time in the old home office and some of them turned out pretty good. When I really get things built out, I'll do another series of shots. Of course, I'll end up doing some one offs during meetings where my presence wasn't REALLY needed, I'm sure. :)

I'm not going to keep the anime presence on my layout - I still want to keep things "real" in feel. But, they'll pop up from time to time for photo shoots.


ZAKU!

RX-77-2 and RGM-79 face off against a Zaku

Z'GOK

The wrong scale, but still fun. The EZ-8s are still my faves.


The Guncannon is always a side liner, but I still think they are kinda cool. Especially some of the new designs. 

Tuesday, February 18, 2014

Northlandz

Another destination to make it to. This one is US based, however, so the chances of me making it are better.

NORTHLANDZ
http://northlandz.com/
495 U.S. 202, Flemington, NJ 08822
908.782.4022

A friend passed an article on Matthew Albanese shooting a miniature with the new Sony QX100 lens-style camera - a nice, cool bit of tech!   That was cool in and of itself, but the subject matter was also right up my model railroad alley!

http://studioatgawker.kinja.com/this-miniature-landscape-photographer-shoots-model-trai-1516617117

NORTHLANDZ is a giant model railroad in New Jersey. While I'm not really in the market to travel to NJ any time soon, family on the East Coast makes it something that might happen. It says it's a 3 hour drive from Maryland, so maybe I could work something out with a train.

At any rate, Northlandz looks like it's a place to venture to for sure. While they might need a new website :::grin:::, the railroad looks like it would be a lot of fun to visit and photograph.

Take a gander.