Queensland Miners Cottage 1:24

[JohnTolcher]

Lastly here some links to larger images, to give a better overall impression.

[Bill Gill]

John, Thanks for the S-B-S on the corrugated roofing. The cottage looks really good all around.

[Ray Dunakin]

Wow, that really looks great! I especially like the "rust showing through old paint" effect on the corrugated metal.

[finescalerr]

Excellent tutorial and you ain't gonna get much criticism of either the modeling or the finish. The work continues to be acceptable. -- Russ

[Ray Dunakin]

One thing that's really interesting about that cottage, is the fact that they went to all the trouble of making a fancy, arched roof over the porch, of what is an otherwise cheap, bare-bones kind of structure. I've seen that sort of thing on miner's cabins here sometimes too -- not the exact thing, but just something where the cabin's owner/builder put in extra effort to add one "fancy" feature.

[Hydrostat]

John,

that's great. I love the started "lacquering" on the boot panel and the dry leaves on the car. And the tree and dry bush. I think you got the best out of representing a tree in that scale so far ... I would be happy to see some pictures taken ouside in natural light. In your last pic it looks like the cabin doesn't have a rear wall (I know the model doesn't have one); maybe some black cardboard in the cabin's background for taking the picture fixes that.

That's some fine modeling!

Cheers,
Volker

[Mobilgas]

John,  Beautiful scene    The 40 ford deluxe coupe really fit's and thanks for the s-b-s on the build. 

[Allan G]

Looks fantastic. Great tutorial!!!! Allan

[JohnTolcher]

Many thanks for your comments 

Hi Volker, in that last image I added in the light in the window using an image editor. It was supposed to represent reflection in the glass of the sky behind the viewer. I didn't really pull it off, ah well!

[Sami]

It's very beautiful and realist. 

[JohnTolcher]

Thanks Sami 

Here is a SBS to wrap up this project for now. As you probably know this is Chuck Doans technique for making miniature grass, my thanks to him. It's Jute Twine, often used for macramé and crafts. I cut lengths and separated the strands, which as you can see are very wavy. So each strand was put under hot water, before I pinched the strand and ran my fingers along it to straighten and squeeze out the water. It was then left to dry.

[JohnTolcher]

The strands were cut into tufts, tapered at one end.

[JohnTolcher]

Meanwhile the ground was made from a wet paste. I used a fine dusty sand that I found in the driveway, I think it's the fines from the local quarry. It was sieved through flyscreen mesh. The following ingredients were mixed together:

2 parts of the sieved sand.
2 parts talcum powder.
1 part PVA Glue.
Just under 1 part water.

All things that were easy to obtain.

[JohnTolcher]

The ground paste in place, a small area at a time.

[JohnTolcher]

Each tuft of grass was picked up with tweezers and dipped in a small amount of PVA glue. It's then placed in the paste; move it around to settle the paste around it.