Greenmax Buildings

I'm super happy with the offerings of GREENMAX. I tried out one of their sets a while back, but I wasn't as patient as I am now as far as process and production. :) I rushed through and got frustrated with the way the Greenmax buildings were supposed to be put together - a very modular style. There were a few areas that were tricky and they couldn't be rushed through, but of course I tried to rush through so I could complete the project. Very messy. It was fun building out each floor, however.

More images here:  http://www.flickr.com/photos/malcojojo/sets/72157626898677980/


I gave the Greenmax product another spin recently and it was a different experience all together. Now, I'll never build one of those "box of sticks" kits. That's not me. However, these modular kits are a lot of fun to put together.


This time, I paced myself and didn't rush and things went far better than my first round.

The instructions are very basic and, in usual Japanese instruction fashion, they were very easy to follow. The kit came with materials to build six houses. There are a few styles of walls and roofs to select from and you mix and match to taste to a certain extent.

When I did some additional research, it turns out that there are folks who also take the kits to another level where they just freestyle the buildings - making them longer and higher.



I did my usual overkill and built out the insides of the buildings as well. Most of the details I added are difficult if not impossible to see...but, I know they're there.

They have a selection of signs and markings that you can apply as well including small things like sale signs and vending machines for the fronts of the buildings. It really tops things off nicely. I have round one of weathering going on these including some tricks that my idol...Akihiro Morohoshi...((takes a moment...places his hand over his heart and looks towards Japan))  :::grin:::...did in his Greemax kitbash video.

Of course, now I want to get another set of these buildings to work out the larger building kitbash and to seek out the first building set I get to try it out again. See if I can do a little better and cleaner job with it this time. Luckily, I have a birthday coming up and I just LOVE buying my own gifts. :)

 I'm really loving how Old Town is coming together. I'll be able to get some great scenes going.

More Greenmax goodness

Buy enough kits and you can go wild

January 2014 Video Update: Overview and Harbor

 It's been a while since I've done a video, so I thought I'd go over some areas of the layout with the camera for those interested. After I shot the thing, I thought I'd break it into more digestible chunklets, the the first part covers the overall layout and the harbor area of the layout. I'll follow up with the Temple, Village, Old Town and Shizuka sections later.



As always, comments and suggestions are more than welcome.

Cheers!

Unitram Plates fix!

AH HA! The Unitram plates solved!  :)

Instead of changing out ALL the Unitram plates, I'll change out the plates in the very front of the layout - setting the roadways at an angle and adding a LOT of interest to the overall look of the layout. It's huge.

I'm going to keep some of the plates - the Unitram plates are grand. But, I'll swap out sections to have some angles and fun alley areas where I'll be able to do a lot of cool detail work.

The green area will be roadway and the blue and white will be the new building areas

I'm going to build out all new areas for the markets and hospital areas (in blue)

I think this will solve my issue with the block-style of the plates, but I won't have to build out everything. However, if the process is easy and has the right look, it might be worth redoing the whole of the plate sections with leaving the track areas. Again, I'll have to do some tests and research.

Now...what to build out the roads with that I can match the road plates a bit. :) Suggestions welcome!

January Update

Well, this was supposed to be an "End of Year" update. Shows you where I am with things.  :)



Submarine Launch Progress

I've made some more progress on the Sub Launch. I added some additional details and I sprayed it with a soft blue color that seems perfect for a seaside building. Now I need to roll back in and do another layer of details and detailed painting and weathering of objects before I toss some people into the mix. I'm really happy with the results and with the re-use of items I already owned to create something new from scratch. Not bad for a first scratch build styrene building.


Shizuka

I have gone back and forth with Shizuka and the Unitram/Unitrack arrangement. While awesome in many respects, it's proving to be a little more limiting now that I'm actually on the main layout. It was fantastic for my office space on my little table and provided many hours of fun (especially during long, painful meetings on the phone at work!)  But, after looking at actual areas of Japan and how things are laid out, I'm starting to rethink the Unitrack and plates.

I thought that I might do away with the building plates and go with something a little more custom for the building areas. I'd keep the tram track and try to blend the two. I'm going to do a little test of this to see just how it might work together. I'd like to have more angles and variation in the street and building arrangement and the Unitram plates just don't allow for it.

The actual street arrangements in Japan have many interesting items like this. Not so square and blocky.

The subject of people has come up a few times as well. I'll need a lot of people, but I figure that between birthdays, Christmas' and work bonus situations, I can slowly add more and more to the scene. :)  I want the Shizuka and Soyokaze areas to really look lived in and populated. I'll also need to implement Rios Tam's system for keeping the whole of it clean. I'm already running into dust issues.


I broke away from the plates for the Shizuka Station area and I find it to be much more kinetic and interesting.




Soyokaze Harbor Area

I wasn't super happy with the harbor area. The two tracks rolling in just didn't seem right from a operation standpoint. Now, I'm in no way a proto-modeler with attention to real world flows being top-of-mind. I like buildings and scenes and people and don't really set things up to match real world situations. However, I do keep half a mind on how things would work in my little reality. Streets need to go somewhere. Sidewalks and paths can't lead off cliffs or into tracks. So, when I saw the two tracks side by side with a small space between the temple hillside and the actual track, I was not happy about the look. "How would vehicles get in there to DO anything?"

I had a long strip of water running down the left side, so I thought I could pull that back to utilize the back area for more track and another place where "things could happen" instead of just boats floating about. So, I rearranged some buildings and stopped the water area a bit sooner.

Shorter water area on the left allows for more land in the back (brown in top left of layout)

Then I did some switching around of switches and the like and came up with something I like a lot more. I have two lines of track now - one servicing the back of the harbor area and the other running parallel to the temple hillside. Now I have a lot of space to play with loading and unloading, fishing scenes and some other harbor goings on. I still need to sort out execution, but I have the base down. Again, most of my efforts to date have been small shelf scenes and modules, so I need to sort out how to do things like...well...building the groundwork for a layout. I'm sure I'll be referencing Marty McGuirk's N SCALE RAILROADING book often!

The farm at the bottom if the photo was just plopped there. The sub launch building will occupy that space.

Soyokaze

I rearranged Soyokaze when I tackled the harbor. I pulled the station from the back of the space and moved it into the scene more. I also pulled the bridge and reset the track to make an overpass situation that I really enjoy. I'll play with the heights of the main square as well, chopping the foam so that the main village area is lower than the station area for the most part. A small hill section will lead up to the track at the back section to create a little more interest and the foam where the trestle is set will also be cut away. It will be a nice little valley area.

 




Overall, I'm a bit happier with the arrangement. It's a bit more broken up and the areas are more defined.

I hope that you all had a wonderful new year and that you managed to get some hobby time in - even if it's just dreaming about what you are planning to tackle in 2014.

Scenes and Interactions

Part of my slight paralysis with the new layout is thinking about all the scenes and interactions I want to have going on. I love scenes and human interactions on the modules I've done so far. When I extrapolate what I've done into a whole layout situation, it gets scary. But, that's not how you do it, right? You do small scenes here and there over time and eventually you have a "complete" story. When you make a feature film, you don't shoot it all in one day all in one shot. Well, unless you're shooting the film TIMECODE or RUSSIAN ARK.  :)

The process will take a long while and will happen in section and pieces. And, before ANY of that happens, I'll need to actually complete the area under it - base and scenic elements fired in first. So, in short, none of that is happening any time soon!

That being said, it will be fun to get some of these sorts of scenes going on the layout at some point. That's what I had the most fun with when working on the layout modules in the past. It's fun to think through.

What are they talking about? 
Are they friends? 
Are they making plans to visit other areas of the layout? 

I love the story behind the interactions. I plan on doing more writing based on these interactions as well - perfect for those times where I want to do something rail related, but can't bring myself to model anything.

Layout Action plan

I've been thinking through my layout plan. It seems to be about all I can actually do at the moment. :::grin:::  I have a few "big ticket items" I'm looking at at the moment.


Harbor Area
The Harbor Area is going to prove to be the most challenging overall, I believe. Basically due to the water space involved. The water issue I faced on my shelf layout looms for me. I'm still not sure about the cracking of the water and I'll need to block off the water area to avoid the horrid leak and drip issue I ran into. "Knowing is half the battle", however, so I'll do some additional planning there.

I have my submarine launch area underway. That's a fun aspect of this area. The other buildings need to be addressed as well - adding some elevation and getting the bases set to the landscape properly and taking the water into consideration as well, of course.

I need to raise the walking bridge, think through the gate leading into the area (the area is closed to random through traffic) and I think that will lead to the Temple area on the hill being higher and a bit more dynamic as well. I see it being nestled into the landscape with trees and lushness all around it. Raising that area and the Village will give the track between a nice depth as well.

Soyokaze Village
I want the village area to have some variation in levels as well with streets running through the hills and the buildings peppered among trees, hills and walkways. It won't be too drastic in this space, but it needs to have some height variants to make it more interesting overall.


There will be a tunnel under the track to lead into the village area from the outside roadway area. I want to see about including a small farm area in the space where there is currently a statue space, but it may be a bit crowded. The "Farm Scene" I want may move to another small shelf scene instead of trying to cram it into the spot.

The road will wrap around the outside of the layout with a bridge in parallel to the train bridge at the front. I think this will be a fun little detail with a lot of potential. (I just hope my toddler and baby girls don't end up playing the role of Kiju Babies after it's built - ripping it out Godzilla style!)

Shizuka
I'm still not thrilled with the transition between the Soyokaze (Old town) and Shizuka (City) areas of my layout. Of course, what I really would love is a long, field area space between the two areas to really get some distance going. Yes, I have thought about blocking off one of the two doors into the converted garage/office space this lives in and pushing out the area so that this could happen. I may do this after really thinking it through. If I did, I'd have space to do everything I wanted to take on instead of chopping bits out. However it's an additional expense and would require some additional heavy planning to accomplish.
As it stands now, I'd just like to tweak the Shizuka tracks so that the City shifts a bit at more of an angle instead of how it sits now on parallel to the table edge. Not only will it be more interesting, but it will give me a little more play around the surrounding area of it and through it. I might then try to move the main station area to the outside space and drop the current, small station that is in front back to the back space. I could also build up the back portion of the city so that it has the same height variance that I want to have in the village area. Far more interesting.

I have more buildings for the Soyokaze town area as well, so more space might be a good things for that as well. Food for thought for sure. I would love to have a little more space especially if it's only a shelf layout sized strip that extends the layout a bit. I already have some of the pieces I'd need to make this happen. I just need to look over the space to see if it would be a viable option. We're already looking at door additions to weatherize the space, so maybe closing off one of the doors would be a great thing.

 More to follow.

Comments welcome, as always. 

Cheers

Submarine Dock phase one

I'm making an effort to add some fun and interesting detail elements into my layout space. I love how my old Harbor scene turned out on my mini-layout, so that's becoming a major feature of my new layout with additional buildings, boats and rail service added.

I saw an opportunity to add something else as well - a submarine dock! :)  I love submarines and thought that I'd make use of some sub gashpon toys I had picked up.

 

I was lucky enough to snag several submarines ( some of which are already making a show on the layout ) and the submarine launch which is the back of a ship. So, I thought that I could build a building around the center piece of the launch and add it to the harbor area. This was also another great chance to try my hand at some styrene building construction.

I started out by thinking through what the building needed and how the design was going to work with the existing launch parts. Later I'd revise some of the plans for rounds two and three, but it was a great start. I wanted to keep it simple. I'm not a super-modeler and I wanted to continue my minor success record! :) 

As you can see, what I have going is really just a simple box with doors and details here and there. The details are what I'm hoping will take this from being fine to kinda cool. I want to snag some EZ Line and do some wire work and ad some other details to make this building pop. I've started by adding some walkways and the like for realism.

The great thing about working at the table inside after the kids are in bed - access to weights and items to lean up against when the glue is drying! :)  ( Whiskey is present again on the left. The key: SMALL amounts! )

I've taken to keeping anything and everything that gets broken, gutted, chipped, or otherwise altered to use for the hobby.  This has come in handy time and time again. KEEP ALL SMALL BITS somewhere. Stick them away - you can always use them.

I plan on adding this cannibalized, gray part to the rooftop as a sort of gangway. 

 I took the current build down to my layout and checked spacing and the like after the base was glued in place. Overall, the fit was right and worked as planned. However, the "real world" weight of the launch got me to thinking about trying to make this look like it might actually be able to work.

The weight of the crane and sub needs a little more behind it than a small building, so I'm going to add some additional structure areas to the front of this piece. Large pylons might sink into the ground. Maybe some additional building structures out in front to make it look like there is some groundwork in place to support the weight of everything. Something. I think this will help me to buy into this little fantasy I'm building. :)

Background buildings help sell the scene. I need to re-work some of the way the buildings are set, but that's later.

I'll be adding railings and safety barriers here and there as detail elements.

All in all, I'm really excited about this progress. Again, I'm not a master craftsman! heheheh My efforts are paying off and I'm really happy with how things are looking. Once I go in and paint things up, I'll add the other detail elements and signage and I think the building will really pop.


Now...to cut windows without crushing the whole thing. :)  My original idea was to fake the window with a real world photo of a warehouse looking spot Photoshopped up for depth and the like, but I have not tried it as of yet. The size of N allows for some slush, but I'm not sure I can sell a 2D window as a real 3D opening. We'll see.

I'm also going to slip in some other 2D elements at the large, rear opening door to make it look like things are actually inside without actually placing items inside. It worked well for my fish building.

More photos to follow. I hope to get more work in on this this weekend.