Westlake Publishing Forums

Hi everyone, I am new to this forum, although there are a few familiar names and they will have seen this on another forum. I am looking forward to your feedback and criticism

I usually build models of selected portions of the street in 1/24 scale and then hand the diorama on the wall, like a picture.

This build is of a section of Bigelow Street outside a friends house in Cambridge MA.

this is the street in question


I usually takes lots of refernece pics (around 100 in this case) and also make doodles in a note book


And then make a full size (1/24 scale) drawing so that I can work out composition etc


The measurments are then transferred to the base (3/4" plywood) and I start adding internal supports for the contours. These ribs are to give the road a crown.


And on the back I add some risers which will allow it to hang on the wall and also give it some height so that it "floats" rather tan looks like it sits flush.


And the road contour is then planked with basswood making sure to give it some more height at one end


And flat headed tacks are added (a la Hamilton) to hold plaster in place where the brick sidewalk will be


There is more to come. I look forward to hearing your thoughts as the build takes shape. Thank you.

I gave it all a good shellacking to stop corrosion on the tacks and the seal the wood and added edging strips around the base


then made dam walls for ther plaster out of cardboard


and poured away


which was followed by the messy business of carving the plaster to follow the contours of the sidewalk


And which was followed by drawing on the locations for each brick, which is trickier than it sounds.




And the lines were then scored using the back of a No 11 x-acto blade

I could tell you were serious when I saw how you prepared the wood base. Not bad so far. -- Russ

I have seen your work.



You are insane.



Take it as a compliment, please.

Christian, excellent how to , so far.  Takes grit and determination to layout and score that hydrocal and produce what looks to be a fantastic side walk.

mike

Welcome aboard!

The model looks very cool so far. Nice work on the bricks.

Thanks for the comments.

Her are some details of the brick carving to give some more 3-d to the surface and create spaces for the tree-planter, gas hatch and water valve.





I used oils to paint the bricks. They gave a nice long working time and I have found I can control the surface from matte to a slight sheen which is what I wanted







I then had to give the bricks some texture so I placed a piece of sandpaper face down on the plaster and burnished the back of it. Then I stippled the surface of the plaster with a wire brush to give an appearance like this



I know that some dark washes will take care of the exposed white plaster.

Very nice brickwork NK and a belated welcome to the forum. You're going to fit right in here...

Paul

Excellent! I second what Paul said. They (whoever 'They Is') say that there is a thin line separating genius from insanity. The guys on this forum happily trip over that line regularly ..  and from the looks of your 'brick work' you should blend right in!

Welcome N.! I know everyone here will appreciate your thoroughness and attention to detail. I suspect this will turn out as realistic as your other work. An impressive start.

I have seen some of your creations on one of the 1/35 blogs, nice work.

I look forward to the results of this project.

Don

http://public.fotki.com/DonRailton/

Very cool so far, and nice SBS. Thanks. Look forward to more on this.

Marc

Very well done!
Since it was mentioned, is this similar to how you would do a 1/35 brick wall?
-Marty

Welcome aboard! This should be real interesting......great job so far!

Anders 

Thanks for the welcome guys. Hello Chester. Marty, I cannot see any reason why this would not work in 1/35 scale, I would give it a go.

The edging to the garden gave me a headache for quite a while. The prototype has a specific fleur de lis style top to it and I was not able to find anything that gave the right look. This was when I wish I had some CAD skills...any advice on this subject is welcome (what programme to buy autoCAD, Alibre etc etc, and how to learn to use it).

I found some dollhouse siding that had components that seemed useable


But it was 3x thicker than I needed


so I soaked everything in superglue and started cutting it up and then in half lengthways


And then I glued it all together to give me what I wanted which was 95% (at this point I had to give myself a perspective reminder) true to the prototype