Haven't gotten a whole lot done on the Mt. Coffin & Columbia River layout lately. Though I did finally get the shingles on the roof, as well as some doors and a chimney: I need to go back and stick some glue under the shingles, as the heat causes them to curl up a bit. Thanks for looking.
Been spending a bit of time working on the switching layout with my daughter, so I thought I gotta get something done on my own layout. As a way to procrastinate further on building the cannery, I decided to scratch a small freight shed out of styrene: Wood I do ok with, but styrene continues to stymie me. I can CA it together, but the painting & weathering part just seems to elude me. I painted the walls Floquil SP lettering grey as base, then sprayed (lightly) with a flat white primer I had. That worked out alright. But then I "washed" it with stain from my Big Jug O' Stain, which was ok. Took some weathering powders to it, & it just got smudgy. Also got in a bit of a hurry, so I glued the bottom posts on 1. last & 2. by hand so they came out a little caddywompus. Here's the prototype, from along the Columbia River somewhere between Portland and Astoria: And here it is sitting on the layout: Still need some stairs at the dock end and for the truck-side door. And crates & stuff. I think it'll come together more when I install it proper on the layout and get some dirt around the pilings. Otherwise, it's nice to have another structure on the layout! Thanks for looking.
What a nice layout !!! The engine house is simply outstanding !! Great weathering and wanderfull atmosphere ... i'm fan of your work :thumbs_up:
Wow MC, as always your work is an inspiration to me! I'll go ahead and second that! And I wouldn't worry about your posts being a touch 'caddywompus' as your prototype's foundations look like they could be a little out of kilter themselves. With regards to your weathering issues, I've got to get myself one of your 'big-jugs-o-stain' - it just makes everything look fantastic Oh, and I vote for the second cannery mock up
Thanks, guys. Wasn't trying to fish for compliments, just trying to say when I work with wood, I feel I know what I'm doing, but when I work with styrene, its like a "Hail Mary" pass that I hope at least looks pretty before getting intercepted I was going for more of the "peeled paint" look by taking some rough-grit sandpaper to expose the grey through the flat-white primer, but it just didn't work. I really need to learn the salt technique for getting a heavier-weathered look. Guess I'll just have to build another structure to try it out Here's another photo I just like the composition of: Thanks for the feedback. Cheers!
Excellent modeling there MC... love the engine house! It makes me recall this wonderful layout in making (tough in much larger scale): http://coastline.no13.se/ . check this out, I am sure you will find some very nice ideas.
Thanks, Nimo, for the link: that is a great layout! Haven't really done much on the Mt.C&CR. Was planning on doing quite a bit today, but temperatures inside the garage skyrocketed this afternoon into the upper 90s / 100s & so I found myself sweating too much to do much modeling. Got a bunch of trees done, though, so that's a good enough excuse for me to take some more photos: Hope to get more done when things cool down. Thanks for looking.
Finally got a bit o' building done. Scratched this shack out of styrene & shingles & wood: That's actually all that's there: no rear or far side wall. [and for a weather-beaten shack, that's an awefully newish-looking door] Originally I was going to have it nestled in the trees up a hill, but when I finished I realized it was too big for the space, so it got moved down to the "town": Ok, right now it is the town, along with the engine shed, watertower and freight shed: But I added a few more textures to the area: some bushes, gravel bits, static grass & some more trees. Also added some textures around the frieght shed: So things are "growing" right along at Mt. Coffin. Not so happy with the lighting for the photos: my cheap-o CFLs half-crapped out and a rainy day didn't allow as much natural light to creep into the garage as I'd like. So will have to wait a bit for more "enlightened" pictures. Thanks for looking.
I'm sorry to say this... but you've done a absolutely terrible job on that layout. I think you should give it to me and start over lol. Just kidding... awesome work as always!
Man that's looking better and better. But when are you going to get off your butt and haul that sucker outside for some natural light photography on your new camera? I triple-dog-dare you! (Yes, this requires a breech of etiquette, but you gotta do what you gotta do...) :tb-tongue:
Thanks Curto & Matt. Sometimes when the modeling RR gods are against me and I see how much more work I have to do on it to get it "finished" I feel like just chucking it (doesn't help that I got a great idea for the next layout ). So catch me at the right moment, Curto, and I'll chuck it in the mail for you. Heck, I might even put it in a box first Matt: if I took it out today for a photo shoot I'd get natural rain effects as well which, while would fit the Columbia River mood nicely, would probably not do the layout any good. (And I doubt Curto wants to get a wet, soggy and moldy mass in the mail). But at some point I'll haul it outside and get some light au natural shots. Well, I have to, now that I've been triple-dogged dared.
Finally got a round to figuring out how to adjust the White Balance on my camera. Problem is there's 20 kabillion settings, from 2000k-14000k, and with finer tweeks along the "Amber-Blue" and the "Green-Magenta" spectrums, so I have quite a bit more experimenting to do. Doesn't help that I'm "color challenged": warm & cool colors I can differentiate, but adjacent colors confuse me. So shooting over 100 picts today with different tweeks resulted in 100 washed out or oversaturated shots. I thought I got a cool "moonlit" shot that was very blue & white, but when I put it on the computer it was actually a gassy green! (If you've see the flatulent dinosaurs & pig on youtube, you get the idea). Anyway, here's the best of the bunch: [Which is kinda like saying "this clean sneaker tastes better than that dirty old boot"] Maybe something better in the next batch of 100
Still looking good, MC. Quick tip. Get yourself a nice white card, then find your setting that allows you to manually set the white balance. Place the white card somewhere in the center of the shot (so it gets lit the same as the focal point of the photo) and set that white balance, then start shooting.
Funny you should say that. I just opened the instruction manual and read about that nifty feature. (Homer Simpson: "Who'd guessed reading and writing would pay off?") So I'll try that out tomorrow. Though it's supposed to dump rain tomorrow so maybe Monday. Thanks for the tip!
Getting better with the White Balance, but worse with the GIMP [smoke & steam added] And the obligatory old timer shot: Alrighty, time to get back to the boxcab!
Thanks, Groove Rider. Right now it looks like it's been in a museum: it's so dusty with disuse! You've heard of smoke on the water, check out the dust on this water: But the wife took the kids to visit family in Japan for the New Year's, so I'm hoping to get moocho modeling done over the next month! I want to get the cannery built, redo the trackwork on the mine side, and get the mine built. Also need to finish up the wooden boxcab I'm working on, but we'll see what the modeling gods have in store for this poor soul this winter
So here's the boxcab beast bred in the blacksmith shop of Mt. Coffin: Hank, the hapless Mt. Coffin monkey mechanic who built it out of Climax & cast-off parts, ran out of whiskey so there's still a few more bells & whistles to add. (Namely a bell and a whistle) Could use some more weathering, too. The board-by-board shell sits on a Bmann 44-tonner mech, and just lifts up, so I can build a more modern boxcab and slip it on whenever I want to change eras. But I'm kinda digging it. Definitely adds some 1900s character to Mt. Coffin: Here's the relief train, bringing much needed medicine to Mt. Coffin: It's been a blast to build, & I'm very happy to finally have a boxcab. Not sure if it rocks, but it definitely doesn't roll: front truck pickup strips turned out bent, so until the replacement truck comes from Bmann, this thing won't roll over an unpowered turnout. Hope to have video soon, though.
