Bigelow Street, Cambridge MA

[W.P. Rayner]

Very clever reuse and adaption of the dollhouse fencing...

Paul

[finescalerr]

How did you cut such a fragile assembly? -- Russ

[nk]

Russ, Soaking the parts in superglue before cutting was the key, it soaked right into the wood and consolidated it so that it was no longer brittle. I tried a few methods which involved masking tape as an auxillary support for the pieces, but it turned out that squeezing the parts between my fingers worked best and then I slowly cut with a razor saw foll. Once cut I placed the part onto some masking tape and smoothed it with an emory stick. It wasn't perfect but it worked pretty well.

If I were to do it again, I think I would make a set of CAD drawings and make up the parts as a photoetch sheet...the beauty of 20/20 hindsight....

[mabloodhound]

nk?

You'll get hundreds of replies to your request for CAD software (as many as there are software companies) and I've been there.

I currently use a FREE program called DoubleCAd XT.   This is a pretty basic program but will do everything you want to as a beginner.   You'll also learn many of the CAD techniques with this.   http://www.doublecad.com/Products/DoubleCADXTv3/tabid/1100/Default.aspx

Once you have tried this program, you can consider investing in one of the more costly ones if you need all the bells and whistles.   I've used many of them and settled on this one as adequate for my laser cutting drawings for my kits.

Dave

[Chuck Doan]

Hi Narayan, glad to see you posting over here.

[nk]

Thanks for the link Dave. I appreciate the advice too.
Hi Chuck. Ken Hamilton told me about this forum, and I'm glad to be here.

I tried out the edging on the garden and compared it with the little crosses (right)  and without (left)



and although the crosses are closer to the prototype, they didn't look as good, so out they went and the edging looks like this now:



I just need to paint them and glue them in place permanently.

[Ken Hamilton]

Hi, Narayan!  Glad you decided to join us.

Guys, Narayan is way too modest to tell us he's a World-Famous Fine Art
Restoration and Lecture Guy who.....like....owns Harvard or something. 
His street scenes are absolutely flawless and he'll no doubt class up this
place quite a bit.

Here's another one of Narayan's street scenes.
(used without permission, but he's too much of a gentlemn to get mad at me)

[Seattle Dave]

I'm glad he joined us too, but have been wondering all along just who "nk" was.  Is "Narayan" his/her last name or first?

Dave V.

[artizen]

He rides a Vespa guys - so he fits right in!!!!!!! 

All that needs to be done now is join all those small dioramas together and run track through them!

OK I'll get my coat now. I know where the door is.

[Ken Hamilton]

Dave:  The Mystery Man is Narayan Khandekar and he really is a super guy and a great talent. 
Here's a link to his Fotki albums (again, posted without permission...but he won't mind)

http://public.fotki.com/nkhandekar/

[danpickard]

Welcome to the forum Narayan.
Interesting little concept pieces.  I really like the focused study of something that most people would walk down on a daily basis and take no notice of what so ever.  They certainly make unusual feature pieces for a collection on a wall.  Thanks for the fotki link Ken.  I'll be back for some further studies when time permits, but of the few shots I had a quick look at, there is some excellent observational modelling and re-creation of the various textures/tones. I can see these making a really interesting series on a wall, displaying the various environments we pass everyday.

Glad you could share this work here, and look forward to seeing more "snap shots" unfold.

Cheers,
Dan

[nk]

Thanks for the intro Ken, and I am always happy for your to grab images from my fotki account. I really was not trying to be a mystery man at all. I'll get my signature sorted. Artizen I do ride a '63 Vespa which I have had since 1986...the smell of 2-stroke smoke....mmmmm. Thanks everyone for your comments and I'll have some more updates soon.
Narayan

[nk]

I added the kerb stones. This took a lot more work than you may first think. The stones are long and thin and I wanted the snapped look of the granite prototype on some of them. So I cast plaster slabs, scored and snapped them, and eventually got some that didn't break. I also wanted some very worn ones too and I achieved this look by applying a plaster slurry to build up the lumpy look of a worn kerb.



I also applied "asphalt" to the street. To do this I glue down several layers of silicon carbide of various grits with Elmer's white glue. For the patch I masked it off and added a "fill" with a different mix of asphalt and ballast.



I'm busy drinking tea and saving the used leaves so that I can dry them andf grind them up for the garden...more soon.

[chester]

Nice N. I like how you included the drill marks for the  wedge and feathers.

[nk]

Chester you'll have to explain how the wedges and feathers work. I've always wondered about the splitting of granite.

I had a busy weekend with the model. I made the tall fence post and simulated spotty granite by scraping a 6B pencil lead over it and pressing the lead into the surface with my finger. I think it worked pretty well but we'll see how it goes when I apply washes to weather it.



I also used very finely ground tea leaves to add as debris between the bricks. I used a mortar and pestle to grind it up and I pressed it into place my my finger.



And lastly I had a lot of fun with the garden. Its not finished, I still have a lot of debris and a garden hose to add, but I let myself wander off the path a little here use some artistic licence...especially as I cannot stand gardening, so I had to keep it interesting. I used dried green-tea leaves, geranium leaf stalks (These look very triffidy to me), dried grasses sliced up with a scalpel and bits from a pine tree. The tree is a weed I found in the garden and I reconfigured it a bit.