In-ko-pah RR -- Designing the Hotel Torgo

[Junior]

Very convincing - excellent work! Will there be a partial interior?

Anders 

[Ray Dunakin]

Very convincing - excellent work! Will there be a partial interior?

Thanks! I'll do the lobby area, and maybe one room. The rest will just have curtains and a light.

[modelico]

Very nice work, looking forward to seeing its ending!!

[danpickard]

Hi Ray,
Been following this one quietly...another impressive structure for your little township.  The view down the street shows a good contrast of styles and sizes of structures, which I think keeps the street scene interesting.  Got to love it when you have to consider actual working plumbing for your models!

Cheers,
Dan

[Ray Dunakin]

A little more progress...

I painted the main doors of the hotel using several thin layers of yellowish brown. I weathered it with a little gray wash near the bottom, and then a very thin black wash. The handles were painted a metallic brass color, with some greenish gray weathering. When the paint on the doors had dried, I masked them off with Scotch tape so I could paint the frame. The frame was painted with the same "wine" red color that I used for the hotel's trim:



I still have to cut glass for the windows, but here's how it looks temporarily installed on the building:




I finished putting the styrene "Spanish tiles" on the parapet roof on each side of the building. I used spackle to represent the large areas of mortar under the ridge tiles. The tiles were then painted as described earlier:






Then I finished the rest of the roof. I masked off the locations for the detail structures, then painted the top of the roof using concrete gray latex exterior paint. After brushing on the paint, I stippled it to eliminate the out of scale brush strokes and give the paint a little texture. I painted the underside of the eaves the same color as the walls. Next, I glued on the detail structures, and weathered the whole thing with thin washes of acrylics, and topped it off with a coat of Krylon UV matte clear:






And here's the whole thing as it is, so far:




I still haven't painted the rear wall of the building. I'm trying to decide whether to add any detail to it, or just leave it blank. Most of the rear wall will be against a cliff, and the rest will only be visible from one angle, so it may not be worth the trouble. Other tasks awaiting completion are finishing and installing the window frames, adding signs and a few other exterior details, weathering the building, adding lighting, and some interior details.

[artizen]

Will this live outside for any length of time?

[Ray Dunakin]

Yes, all my buildings stay outdoors all the time.

[artizen]

It's too nice to be outside!

Really great work on this building as you have done with all the others in the street.

[Malachi Constant]

Those home-made doors are an outstanding touch ... they LOOK like they were "made for" the building because they WERE.  That's the kinda thing that makes everything "fit" in place and look right.  Nice.  And, enjoying all those other little nutty touches that go in the same direction ... like spackling tiles and such.  Crazy is good.    -- Dallas

[Chuck Doan]

I like the different tones of the tiles.

[Ray Dunakin]

Well it's been a long time but I finally have some more progress to report...

In March I built the window frames out of styrene strips. They're a very simple design, intended to be inserted into the openings from the inside. I built them in two layers, beginning with the larger outer frame that acts as a sort of flange against the interior of the wall. I used strips of scrap styrene as a spacer to center the vertical muntin:



Then I added the horizontal muntins, aligning them by eye to the marks I made on the frame:




The second layer is the part of the frame that fits into the window opening. It was built separately, then was glued to the outer frame:





The two larger window frames were built in the same manner:




The frames were then sprayed with white primer and painted a dark maroon color using Apple Barrel craft acrylics. To simulate a slightly worn and peeled look, I used a rough, old brush to lightly drybrush some grayish brown streaks. Then the frames were sprayed with Krylon UV clear matte finish.

I glazed the windows with real, 2mm thick glass. Due to the simple design of the frames I only had to cut the glass into rectangles of approximate size and shape. These were glued to the back of the frames using clear silicone.

I only plan to detail the lobby and one or two rooms, so I needed curtains. I've tried various approaches to curtains, usually using lace. This time I tried cutting thin linen into strips, saturating it in acrylic matte medium, and then running it through a paper crimper. Getting it through the crimper was a little tricky, and of course very messy, but it did hold the shape pretty well. (Be sure to wash the crimper immediately!) 

I dried the crimped strips of linen on a sheet of wax paper sprayed with Pam. When dry, I ran them through the crimper one more time. The the strips were cut to fit the windows and glued to the rear of the glass using a paintable silicone sealant. The sealant was applied only at the edges so it would not be visible through the windows. Here are a couple shots of the finished windows:





Some of the clear silicone was visible around the muntins, as you can see on the above photo. I later cut it off with a sharp hobby knife.

Before installing the windows, I printed a decal for the sign above the entrance. After applying the decal I touched it up with paint to blend it into the surface and to make it look less like a decal.

Next I weathered the building using thin washes of gray and brownish-black. Occasionally I mixed some of these colors into the base coat and used that for finer strokes. When the weathering was finished I coated the entire structure with Krylon UV matte.

Finally, the windows were installed, using paintable silicone sealant to glue them in place and fill small gaps. Then I touched up the sealant with paint as needed.






I got all this done just in time to put the hotel on the layout for the West Coast Regional Tour on July 7. However there are still a few things that need to be done, such as the interior, the lighting, and a few other small details.










That's all for now. Enjoy!

[artizen]

Superb!

[Malachi Constant]

Wonderful!  Especially like the low-angle shots.  -- Dallas

[Scratchman]

Great job Ray and a great SBS.

Gordon Birrell

http://www.flickr.com/photos/77318580@N00/

[Ray Dunakin]

Thanks.

BTW, eventually I plan to raise the surface of the road slightly to hide the slight gap under the sidewalks.