Changing the Perspective with Mirrors

I was paging through my Model Railroad Handbook # 35: “Detailing Tips and Techniques” and I came across two articles that mentioned making use of mirrors on one’s layout. The first article is “Mirror Magic” by Charles Laman. The author uses two first-surface mirrors from Edmund Scientific ¹ set at 90’ angles of one another at the end of a street to force the perspective of a street continuing off in the distance.

The author found that he had to experiment with the placement of his vehicle’s and signs in order to avoid the typical signs that read backwards or his vehicles seeming to be on the wrong side of the street.

In the second article, Urban Scenery, by Earl Smallshaw, which is a rather extensive article, there is a paragraph describing how the author used the same mirror type on several locations on his layout. He built them to his backgrounds extending the view of the scene.

Smallshaw references two other Model Railroader authors use of mirrors:

• John Allen: “The Art of Using Mirrors”, December 1981, Model Railroader
• Malcolm Furlow: “Sheridan Colorado: 1927”, July 1981, Model Railroader

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¹ These mirrors are still available from Edmunds.

Reys Speeder

This Speeder adaptation is made from hard plastic and only measures 40 x 25mm. The figure is faceless and like the actress Daisy Ridley when she plays Rey in Star Wars: The Force Awakens, expressionless. Reys speeder is approximately 12 feet long in "real" life amd might make an interesting project someday.

"I designed my speeder to carry heavy loads back and forth between the Graveyard and Niima. But when it's lightly loaded it goes really fast-- and pretty high."

―Rey

A very interesting vehicle. "It is built from parts from the starship graveyard on Jakku, the Niima Outpost, or from parts acquired from Teedo traders."

"My custom speeder. There's nothing like it in the whole galaxy."

―Rey

Screen shots are from Star Wars: The Force Awakens

Greebles: How Tiny Details Make a Huge Star Wars Universe

I just found this informative article on greebling. My curiosity has been perked and I am starting to think on ways one could build there own greeble. Its not all of us you can afford to take-in dozens of model kits just for the greeble. It might make an interesting series?

Blade Runner Blimp Replica

Interesting conversation on the creation of a Blade Runner Blimp Replica.

Adam Savage's Set Tour of the Blade Runner Universe!

Did you realize that some of the scenes of Blade Runner were filmed in a cave? The filming location helped protray the "other worlds" feel of the street scenes. Although this is a short video it provides an interesting prospective into the making of this film. In addition, the video includes a nice music track.

Although I haven't had a chance to watch this one yet, this is another installment to my Blade Runner Series. You got to love all things about Blade Runner.

Plans for a Spring House

You might remmber my post from the 15th of March "A Random Set of Bits." I cannot say that I am any closer in finding out why this bag of bits was started. However, I have been wanting to build a small spring house for my Bath River Railway, a stucture to complete a scene, so I grabbed a small zip-lock bag and started stuffing it with what I thought I might need.

I chose just a fraction of the available materials from the bag. Four pieces of strip wood for bracing, the slab of wood for my heavy boarded door, the larger piece of embossed stone paper, the larger and wider piece of primed stripwood, and the retangler piece of styrene roofing. To that I added a piece of card for my subwalls, a wooded match stick for the lintel and two plastic hinges for the door. I am also planing on creating some form of handle and maybe even a latch for the door.

I made a in-scale drawing of the supposed strucuture and took a picture of the drawing, but I didn't like how the the picture turned out, so I will attmept to describe the demensions and featrues of the structure.

• The structue will measure eight feet sqaure and stand ten feet high at its peak and is constructed of stone
• The roof is of some sort of corregated material(it looks like iron)
• The door is constructed from 4 x 12 inch boards
• A large stone lintel will be placed above the door

The structue will be planted in a small indention in the ground and will take a few steps to step down into. The steps will be natural stones, those that are close at hand and fit for the purpose.

Hopefully the structure will have been completed by the time of this post is made.

Vacume Formed Scratch-Built Spaceship

Adam Savage creates a scratch / kit-bashed space ship starting off with a vacume formed components and then practices some greebling. This video is part of Savage's One Day Builds series.

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Structures for the Tarmuth Layout

Slowley, I am aquiring structures and motive power for the future Tarmuth Layout. The storage tank teeters on clasping with its one side almost rusted out and the storage tank is grimy and full of rust from many years of nelglect.

The tank itself is built from styrene sheet and the details are either frabricated from bits of styrene or from my scrtach box. I don't know which part of construction I like best, the fabercation or the greebling after construction.

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Short article by Peter Briggs on the art of greebling

Satisfaction Scale: 4 out 5.

Blade Runner and Firefox Miniature Effects

Here is another installment to my Blade Runner series. The Firefox segment of the video is equely interesting. Although I find the whole spectrum of special effects facinating what really interests me is the fabrecation end of it.

It is in the Details-a Study

When it comes to the fine details of our model railroads I have come to realize how important it is to focus on one scene at a time. Our layouts should be a series of scenes, each scene telling a story. One way to accomplish this is to focus in on the details that are all around us. Take notes or least take a mental note of those scenes that stand out to you.

It is like sudying a picture in art gallery, you really cannot fully appreciate a work of art until you have fully studyed the subject. Take a look at the first two images on this page and give them a carefull study. Take note of all the details of each scene. List all the details, especially on the first image. And then take note how they all fit into the larger picture.

Making Buildings from Foamboard

I seem to have come across this page before and I am surprised I didn't index this sooner. The site consists of several pages covering various methods of scratch building structures. Pages have been hosted by the 009.CD2.

Blade Runner 2049 Miniatures

Weta workshop out of New Zealand is the special effects company that did the special effects for movies like King Kong and the Lord of the Rings triology. And as this video makes plain, they also did the special effects for Blade Runner 2049. This video features the miniature mile-high buildings and the LA waste land landscape.

Like I have alluded to before the movie is produced in a pure cinamatic climax of scenes and color.

Storage Tank #1

Here is another kit-bashed storage tanks which I built sometime ago. It was built by gluing three scotch tape cores together. The piping is from my junk box. While at the office I have had others save tape cores for me for sometime.

I found this tip in Dave Frary's 222 Tips for Building Model Railroad Structures. It is #34 in Kalmbach Books Model Railroad Handbook series. Like anything from Frary, it is must have for any model railroader.

Storage Tank #2

Okay, I really don't know how many fuel stands I have built. This is my second scratch built or should I say kit-bashed storage tank. I build stuff from what I have on hand. The tank is a calculator tape core and I built the stand is built from strip wood. The other bits are from my scrap box.

I don't know what got me started on fuel stands, but I am sure I will find somewhere on my layout to stick them.

Satisfaction Scale: 4 out 5.