Factory and...stuff

 

I managed to pour a lot of Woodland Scenics' Smooth-It product. A lot. The whole factory section was rough to manage, but I'm happy with the way it came out overall. Someone asked me why I was pouring Smooth-it over the already flat surface of the pink foam - saying that it was just adding weight to the whole of things. 

I basically have a love for the product and like the texture better than the pink foam. There's a "street" quality to it that I don't see in the foam. :::shrug:::  I dunno. I just like it. :)

I poured in other areas as well to get a more fluid feel to the street areas and some other areas in the section.

 

Painted the whole of it up for round one of grey. I'll be going back in and detailing areas as well once things get a little more locked down. 

 

While things continue to shape up in the new section, they are tending to get a bit more messy before shaping up. Again, I got a little over eager with things being packed into the space, so instead of a lot of track work and operations potential, I have a mix of SUPER light operations with a lot of scenic elements I wanted to incorporate. Fun for sure, but I'm stopping the forward progress for a moment while I make sure the track arrangement will work for me for the longer term. 

I'm happy with the factory, though there are spaces where things could be a little tighter. So, I ordered a few more factory nuggets to fill the space a bit and make it look a little more busy.

The factory itself and it's operations are fantasy. There's even an element of science fiction that will come into play eventually when I get into making my kaiju monster element. I like a little realism with this project, but I'm not interested enough to research and execute a more real world option for the factory. I don't want this to turn into a job in and of itself! :)

I think these tank additions will fill the space nicely. Once I get some arrangement in place that I like, I'll lock things down and start all the pipe work. The factory kit from Tomytec comes with TONS and TONS of pipe, so I'll have a bunch of it filling spaces and moving off and up the hill as well, masked at key parts to help with making the connections look realistic.

I also snagged a few of Tomytec's "Factory People", so that will add a lot of life to the factory area as well.








And in the FILLING SPACE department, an OOPS. I was getting a bit greedy with buildings and things and ordered a Kato longhouse kit that I've been eyeing for a long while. While I love it, I think it's taking up a bit more space than I planned on. It's going to be a fun addition, but....yeah...it's a lot of space. :)

The kit is a fun build and I'm still compiling my notes on paper kits vs. plastic kits. While I love the paper kits and the skill building they provide, I have to say that it is nice not having to worry about smashing parts as much! These pieces are sturdy and hold up when pressure is applied. There is much more room for error as well which is a plus for me right now. I'm smashing hobby time in here and there where I can, so snails pace paper kit builds are just not where my head is at right now. 

The Kato kit is simple, but still has some elements of difficulty associated with it. Mainly, keeping the walls and roof together when putting it all together. I painted up parts of the inside as well, even though you only see them from certain low angles.

Some blue and purple overall folks really helped to complete the scene. :)

A little touch of red brick to break things up a bit.

In place, it's working out.

I've also added a little shipping facility to the mix. I wanted to give the trains here something else to do as well. Why not have a few small shipments going out from town as well?

And lastly, I started playing around with some of the other detail items in the town. Parking for the commute first comers is directly in front with overflow parking out under the tracks. (Not pictured) Realistically, it doesn't look like many of these stations have a ton of parking in some cases, but I always like to think it through a bit.

I'm playing around with builds spacing and street flow now. I'm going to be keeping things a bit tighter in this space, so I may end up moving things over from Shizuka to fill in once my final city buildings come in in December.

I ordered a few high rise buildings that will add to the Shizuka-scape, so when those arrive, I might be pushing some of the smaller buildings out and over to the new section. It should work well. 

I really enjoy a lot of these smaller thinking sessions - planning out the flow of the city and how it's working. I'm enjoying the new section a lot. Once it's a bit more established, I'll most likely jump back over to the other sections so they don't get neglected.

But first....naming the new section! :)

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