Cast from resin this little cartoonish looking alligator measures approximately 57 long by 25mm wide.
I have different ideas as to what should be included on my model railroad layout. To add just a hint of whimsy he or is it a she will be added in the swamp on my layout.
The swamp shack sits atop of its new deck. The deck I had originaly created was much too small for the hut. The shack needs some pilings and a couple of columns under the overhang of the porch. It has taken me a long time to complete this structure.
Work is continuing on my first swamp shack. I was just working on the shacks platform today. The one that I previously made wasn't large enough to fit the near completed structure so I started a new one. This one with the new set of dimensions. It took me three tries to get the right look for a roof. At least the first and second attempts can be cut up and used as roof material for another structure.
I had hoped to had completed this project by the end of this month (Oct.), but it seems I will not. Although the shack nears completion it still needs soome attention.
However, it is time to layout the roof sections. The roof will over-hang the front entrance by up to five feet. Perhaps I didn't need to do so, but I added bits of textured cardstock sheet to two inside walls, just in case the interior is viewable from its location on the layout.
Although this structure still requires a few tweeks I have went on to the second phase, the roof. The roof will over-hang the front, creating a porch like area.
View of left-side. This structure might have been built from one type of material, but over the years the owners used whatever materials that were at hand: plywood, corrugated and steel panels, wood boards, even some tarpaper sheet.
Back
And the right hand side
I have been very slow getting any type of project started, this month, and then to continue working with it. However, I recently started working on a new series named swamp shacks.
At one time this shack might have been constructed of one type of material, but over time parts of the shack were replaced with whatever was avialable adding to its shoddy appearence.
I used wood strips to create a interior framework so that I could model gaps between the mostly plywood sheets. This series of strucures is being built for an addtion to my narrow gauge Bath River railway.
There are eight little lovelies in Demiak's Deepwater Horizon exhibit. The shack models are especially inspirational.
The link above was added on 10/11/2024, @ 4:00 PM
You really have to see this structure. It is so full of character and texture. The structure is a inspirational piece. One that I might have to mimic someday.
"Dagobah was the world that Luke Skywalker visited with his quest to find Yoda, the Jedi Master in Star Wars V. Dagobah is a swamp-covered planet characterized by its bog-like conditions and fetid wetlands; the murky and humid quagmire was undeveloped, with no signs of technology. Although it lacked a civilization, the planet teemed with life of common reptilian and amphibious creatures. "
Yoda'a home on Dagobah
Yoda. All images are from Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back
“Power-wagons, like the Meks, were originally swamp creatures form Elamin 9, were great rectangular frames slabs of muscle slung into a rectangular frame and protected from sunlight, insects, and rodents by a synthetic pelt. Syrup sacs communicated with their digestive apparatus, wires led to motor nodes in the rudimentary brain. The muscles were clamped to rocker arms which actuated rotors and drive wheels. The power-wagons were economical, long-lived, and docile, and were principally used for heavy cartage, earth-moving, heavy tillage, and other arduous jobs."
The Last Castle, Jack Vance
"The village held its breath. Zogar Sag stood still as a statue, his plumes trembling faintly about him. But suddenly the gate was no longer empty.
A shuddering gasp swept over the village and men crowded hastily back, jamming one another between the huts. Balthus felt the short hair stir on his scalp. The creature that stood in the gate was like the embodiment of nightmare legend. Its color was of a curious pale quality which made it seem ghostly and unreal in the dim light. But there was nothing unreal about the low-hung savage head, and the great curved fangs that glistened in the firelight. On noiseless padded feet it approached like a phantom out of the past. It was a survival of an older, grimmer age, the ogre of many an ancient legend—a saber-tooth tiger. No Hyborian hunter had looked upon one of those primordial brutes for centuries. Immemorial myths lent the creatures a supernatural quality, induced by their ghostly color and their fiendish ferocity."
Chapter 4 The Beasts of Zogar Sag, Beyond the Black River, Robert E. Howard.
"Balthus felt his scalp prickle. Neither man nor any beast that he had ever seen could have left that strange, monstrous three-toed print, that was curiously combined of the bird and the reptile, yet a true type of neither. He spread his fingers above the print, careful not to touch it, and grunted explosively. He could not span the mark.
'What is it?' he whispered. 'I never saw a beast that left a spoor like that.'
'Nor any other sane man,' answered Conan grimly. 'It's a swamp demon—they're thick as bats in the swamps beyond Black River. You can hear them howling like damned souls when the wind blows strong from the south on hot nights.'"
Chapter 1 Conan Loses His Ax, Beyond the Black River, Robert E. Howard
This forty-two minute video will show you how the author created a bayou swamp scene diorama. Although this type of project is way out of my league the process toward completion is completely awe inspiring. You never know if the techniques presented here may be handy some day.
"The common black scorpion of Southern India," he said softly. "Its venom is the basis of the priceless formula, F. Katalepsis, upon which the structure of our Sublime Order rests, Dr. Stuart; hence the adoption of a scorpion as our device."
He took up a long slender flask.
"This virus prepared from a glandular secretion of the Chinese swamp-adder is also beyond price. Again-the case upon the pedestal yonder contains five perfect bulbs, three already in flower, as you observe, of an orchid discovered by our chief chemist in certain forests of Burma. It only occurs at extremely rare intervals—eighty years or more—and under highly special conditions. If the other two bulbs flower, I shall be enabled to obtain from the blooms a minimum quantity of an essential oil for which the nations of the earth, if they knew its properties, would gladly empty their treasuries."
The Golden Scorpion, Sax Rohmer
