In the weekend of May 26/27, there is a N scale exhibition in Hilversum, a town not far from the city I live in. This exhibition is organised by few enthusiastic modelrailroad shopkeepers who are dedicated to N scale. One of them regularly organizes N scale events in the eastern part of our country, and he always has diorama contests during his events. So, the event in Hilversum also knows a diorama contest. Normally, the maximum size of a diorama is not more than 1 or 2 ft, but this time it is 1x1 meter (3ft and 3 inches). Enough space to make some real working layout, so I decided to join the competition, together with my wife. The diorama is called Manga City. The central theme of te diorama is, well, the Japanese manga style, so we try to put as much manga in the layout as possible, but without overdoing it. Manga is very popular in Japan and they have honored some manga artists by putting their work on trains and busses. Needless to say that I have bought those trains (and one bus) when I saw that Tomytec has produced them in N scale (btw: Japanese N scale is 1:150). The trackwork is simple: a double oval without any switches. It is not intended as a switching layout, but as a diorama with trains running continuously. I love Peco flextrack, but I am not able to bend them into nice curves, so I have used Kato for the curves and Peco flex for the rest of the track. I enlisted for the competition in october, but that didn't mean that I took off with a lot of energy and motivation. I am always really slow and lazy when it comes to building modules and layouts. That's why I love deadlines, because they eventually force me to do something. But that's also why I am a little bit stressed by now: just one month left and still so much to do...... This picture shows the situation in december: already two months have gone by and the only thing I had was a Japanese Plywood & Foam Central.....
The problem with building this Japanese diorama is that I don't know much about Japan. I have built many US modules and layouts, which is rather easy since there are plenty of books, magazines, movies, pictures, and yes, Trainboard. I can read English, so it is quite easy to find the information I need. I don't pretend that my US modules are 100% realistic - I have never been in America so I can't check whether it looks and feels like the real thing. But Japan, that's really a difficult task: I don't read Japanese, I don't know much about Japan, and I don't know anyone who builds Japanese layouts. Searching on the internet gives my pictures and ideas, but there is a big chance that I put the sign of the butcher shop on a book store.... But it is also interesting to model something completely different: you find new landscapes, architecture and cultural expressions. The first thing I had to tackle were the buildings. I like scratchbuilding, but I thought it to be wise to start with some kits from Tomytec. These are easy kits that don't need paint, and have only a few parts, so building them was not difficult. I only painted some details. And I put some weathering on the models.
Not only Tomytec makes kits. There is also GreenMax which produces nice and cheap Japanese houses. Never heard of the brand, but my German supplier has a nice assortment of their kits so I ordered one. These kit need some more attention since they haven't been painted by the factory. I also had to work on the trains. Tomytec produces dummies: trains without an engine. You have to buy the motorized frames seperately. That can be a little bit problematic when you don't live in Japan, because there are not many shops that sell the trains and/or the frames. So it took some puzzling to find the matching frames for my trains. Oh, and since most passenger trains have one motorized coach and one trailing coach, I also needed some replacement wheelsets and frames for the latter ones....... It is not very difficult to swap the frames. The first train was the most difficult one because I can't read Japanese, so I had to guess what the instructions tried to tell me.... Be patient, and don't rush anything. It took me 45 minutes to do the first train, but than I understood how it worked and it was very easy to do the other trains.
Manga is the theme of this diorama. The trains show manga on their sides, in honor of some famous Japanese manga artists. Yes, those trains are prototypical! I do not want to put too much manga on the layout, I try to be subtle with the theme. Of course, I have a shop where they sell manga books, and the store is named after an existing manga bookstore in Japan. There will be posters of books and movies on the walls of the buildings. Some of the posters have been made by our son, who studies for animation and design, and loves to make manga drawings in his spare time:
I like scratchbuilding, so I wanted some buildings of my own on this diorama. I started with a manga store. The building is not prototypical, but I think it would fit nicely into a Japanese street. The name 'Mandarake' is an existing bookstore in Japan. The small station has curved platforms, so I had to scratchbuild the station. Pictures of Japanese stations helped my to design something that looks quite realistic to me: A friend of mine told me that there are many 7-Eleven's in Japan. So I needed one for the diorama. My wife scratchbuilt the little shop:
Here some more pictures of our scratchbuilding efforts. The corner building that I built for the row of stores in the background: I also built a family house that will stand next to the tracks. Many Japanese houses have tiles on the roofs, and I found out that tose tiles look like the Dutch tiles. And I was lucky to have some left-over styreen 'Dutch tile'-sheet (a leftover from a project of many years ago) that I could use for this Japanese house. One of the landmarks in the diorama will be the temple. My wife scratbuilt this nice building:
Sorry for all these posts, I had to catch up a little bit, but I am up-to-date now With one month to go, we have still a lot to do. I have made plaster rocks and have put the (styrene) streets in place. My wife is building one more store, because there is still some space left on the background. Now I have to paint the rocks first, before I can continue with making the rest of the scenery.
I was in a similar situation when I started to build a Japanese layout as I did not understand the architecture. I started by building some kits and then moved on to scratch build a few structures that I needed. Your wife is doing a great job with those structures, you are lucky that she shares the hobby with you. There are many convenience stores in Japan including 7 Eleven, Lawson, Family Mart, and others. Tomix has offered kits with stickers for some of these and I would suggest looking through the Tomix structure listing on the N Scale database. http://www.trovestar.com/generic/index.php?Collection=4&Body+Style=TMX-STRUCTURE&Brand=Tomix I really like your mini-layout and the station area is right on. Just right for a 2 car train.
I see that both Tomix and Tomytec have an large assortment of kits! You could build an entire city with those.
The farm scene is ready. The building is a Tomytec kit, with just 2 or 3 parts...... We used paint and powders to make it a little more different than the picture on the box. I've made the rocks with plaster in Woodland Scenic molds, representing slate. The base colour of the slate is Heki asphalt grey, with a wash of black paint. The green is a mix of Woodland Scenics, Anita Decor (a Dutch/German firm that produces great ground stuff and trees), and Heki trees. The grass tufts are from a local guy who makes them on sheets of plastic. The fence is from a mosquito net, glued on styrene strips. Difficult to glue together, but it worked.
Having watched a lot of Japanese train films on YouTube, which a number show cab rides, I always pay attention to what is going on out the window. It looks like you have caught the flavor and color of the Japanese countryside. In fact I have watched so much I have started to point to things before I do them like the Japanese train crews. Having been to Japan many years ago on several occasions it is the countryside there that I fell in love with.
I like concrete fences. Instead of buying them, I make them from styrene. First, I scratch lines in a piece of styrene, so it will look like the horizontal concrete slabs. For the poles, I have always used square styrene strips, but this time I used I-beams. They have a big advantage: the concrete walls fit perfectly into the open sides of the beams. Why didn't I figure that out years ago???? After glueing together the 'slabs' and the 'poles', I had a long fence that I put on the layout, right into the still soft modeling clay. All I have to do now is painting it grey.
I have less than a week before it has te be finished. Why didn't I start a little bit earlier? It's always the same problem: so much to do in the last few days before an event.....
For the few people who like Japanese trains: I made a short movie of the diorama at the modelrailway exhibition last weekend (where Manga City won the second prize).
