Bits, Pieces, & Clutter

[DaKra]

Nice to see the lowly manhole cover and sewer grating given their due as scale models.  Yours show how interesting they really are.   I'm still trying to figure a good paint color to represent un-burnished, weathered cast iron.  Black is close but needs a little red I think.   

Dave

[Gordon Ferguson]

Dave,

agree with you ... when I get round to painting them for real will probable try some washes of a dark/rusty red to start of with.

Marty,

will try and put some SBS picture together when I rebuild these for real  .... will put on a separate thread so as not to clutter up Marc's.

Ray,

not very good with fish, if it is the rectangular ones at the back I used aluminium mesh stuck on to plastic card .... will not be pursuing these as they turned out too modern looking for me!

Russ,

you and Phillip kindly answered a query I had ........ as you asked here is the first test piece for trying out "card" cobbles/setts, further tests to do on the painting.

[finescalerr]

First let's get the compliment over with: Terrific. Now for the question: How did you get the texture on the stones? Was it the paper you used or did you apply it yourself? -- Russ

[Gordon Ferguson]

Russ,

as in the case with a lot of my work, more luck than judgement.

The card I used did have a very slight texture to it although I think mostly it came from "stippling" on the PVA glue I used to seal the card

[finescalerr]

Nice work with the glue; that was far more important than the paper's texture. I'm jealous of your abilities with paper. You really did some good work. -- Russ

[Malachi Constant]

Got hold of some small etched letters that might be useful in various scales.  Shown is Royal Model #489 Letters (Small) ... they also have a larger letter set and matching number sets in both sizes.  Found it easiest to cut them with a sharp #11 blade over a piece of thick styrene (cutting mat deflects too much for the thin material and Xuron cutters are MASSIVE overkill!) 

Cheers,
Dallas

[Gordon Ferguson]

Thought I would add latest experiment with cobbles, pinched /borrowed idea from "Little Andi" and for Russ its paper again!

Cobble/sett pattern drawn out on heavy water colour paper with ball point pen to emboss, impress the joint lines


to give some 3 D effect some of the cobbles were cut on 3 sides and slivers of paper glued underneath.

Test piece glued down with addition of paper under centre line to provide some degree of camber.



Piece was then sprayed black, then dry brushed with grey and individual cobbles painted with different shades of grey. When dry some MIG industrial dirt brushed on then sealed with a light coat of dullcoat.





Next test piece, will include some cobbles which have suffered heave/subsidence and also see if I can sort out some individual cobbles that have been pulled out completely.

[Andi Little]

Hey..... I had an idea like that once!!!!! - [Big grins].

Seriously..... looks good in your hands Gordon. I believe it's a technique that could offer up all sorts of opportunities and sophisticated finishes and styles. I shall continue to play myself and see if I can't explore some more.

Raw paper and posing with an embossing tool......




And a trial finish just to see if the technique was viable............



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. Ha!!! Steal my thunder??? Follow me - I'll be right behind you!

[finescalerr]

This is great stuff and seems equal to the results from plaster -- only less expensive and far less messy.

I once saw a brick or cobblestone road from a commercial molded rubber product that appeared on a diorama by Dave Revelia. It did not look as real as what you gentlemen have achieved.

Between the recent posts about paper, laser cut resin board, etched metal, and rapid prototype output, my mind is overloaded with options. The hobby business may be in terrible shape but the quality of modeling has never been better.

Russ

[Belg]

Andi Gordon, both of your examples look great have either of you tried to do a 90 degree angle in the block or stone method? It looks like it has some real promise. Pat

[marc_reusser]

Really cool and isnspirational stuff and ideas guys...gives me a lot to think about and play around with.


For those of you in the crowd that like manhole covers.....here's a page for you!

http://nickolai.de/Kanaldeckel/kanaldeckel.html


MR

[Mr Potato Head]

This embossed water color paper is a pretty cool idea! I supose you coud do the repose method and push it out from behind or glue small paper balls or wads behid to give a stone wall even more 3-d ?? and what about bending the paper to make the moutside corner? I think I will give it a try
Gil

[marc_reusser]

I was bored at the bench and didn't feel like focusing on a specific project, so I decided to try a small experiment to play around with making old stone (limestone?) walls and vegetation.

Several weeks back I found an old .125" thick cork drink coaster, I had seen some of the military guys using cork to represent stone walls, and I had always wanted to try this, I also wanted to play around with some small vegetation details.

The cork was cut into strips, the facing/exposed edge and sides were roughed up by passing an Xacto over them, and using my fingers. They were then glued to a foam-core backing using Yellow carpenters glue; 020" strip-wood was used as a spacer for the horizontal courses. Once the glue had dried, I did some additional passes over the surface of the "stone" using a wire pencil and my finger.

Next the surface and joints were brushed and stippled with Liquitex modeling paste (the ones I had seen used plaster for this, but I did not feel like mixing any). After drying with a hair dryer, the mortar and stone surfaces were colored using Vallejo acrylics.  This was followed by a quick application of some dark brown, grey and green Vallejo acrylics to represent the damp areas.

The small fine plant material is foam for trees from Woodland Scenics, the broad-leaf material is small pieces of dried parsley, lightly painted with Vallejo acrylics.

The wall section below is approximately 1/2" tall, and 3 inches long; and took about 1-hour to complete.  It's far from perfect, and could use a lot of tweaking and finesse.....but it was a fun little experiment, and will no doubt lead me to practice/experiment further with this.

[Malachi Constant]

I've looked at this a couple of times and not sure yet if I like it or not ... it's looking a bit like a foam casting to me in the first and third shots ... but seems more pleasing in the straight-on shot.  Might be interesting to see how it looks sitting on some dirt, etc to get more of a feeling of how it looks in context.  Have to remember to save the parsley next time it shows up on a plate now ...

You might also try Liquitex Ceramic Stucco ... it's another acrylic medium, but it has a grainy/sandy texture.  (Which may or may not be what you want here, but if you haven't tried that yet I'll bet it proves useful somewhere.)

Cheers,
Dallas

[marc_reusser]

Yeah...I think if one used plaster or spackeling compound, you could get a better differentiation between stone and mortar, because you coud use a coarse brush to "scrub" down the morter joints a bit and get better definition and surface textures between the stone and mortar.


Marc