HO/OO modules in Maryland, USA

The Hogwarts castle modules were entirely scratchbuilt and the Hogsmeade Station modules were combination scratch, Hornby Skaledale and Bachmann structures with minor modification. I operate these with a large modular railway club that sets up at shows several times each year. I'm working on Hogsmeade Village now. My kids are more fans of the films and books than I am, but its a great subject to model. It also gives me good reason to expand my collection of British trains.





 



 

Stunning, is the word that comes to mind.  :thumbs

The buildings are a mix of balsa, basswood and poplar dowells. The big tower is made of a section of 4" PVC pipe.




I made a single section of the stone courtyard in basswood and then made an RTV mold of it and cast lots of courtyard wall panels in casting resin. I did the same for the dormer windows.




I bought a single piece of stone wall texture Plastruct sheet, poured RTV silicone rubber on it to make a large "rubber stamp". I then rolled embossing powder ink on the rubber and pressed or rolled building sections on it and quickly sprinkled empossing powder on the building surface and hit it with a heat gun. This gave me cheap and consistent stone texture on both flat and curved surfaces.







The mountain is made of 5 2" layers of housing insulation foam covered in gauze dipped in a plaster (Durham's Rock Hard Water Putty).




I then covered the mountan in rock mold castings, blended them, and painted and landscaped.







Kids seem to especially like it.




-Clay

 

Couple more shots:










…and the "Wand'r Inn":






 

Very nice - I will have to point one of my mates to this thread.

Fantastic modelling -  I can see a potential headline  "Hogwarts - brought to you by the man from Marrs":lol:

Thanks Ron, Dave, Max & Robert.
Much appreciated.

Here's a YouTube video a visitor shot at a show of the modules - its not HD and the light could be better, but it shows the whole module set:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=VBzGCktSSco

-Clay

Here's another link to a video. I shot this one with the camera on a tripod. The lighting is much better as well.

Gonna try to link the video to the image…  PLEASE CLICK ON IMAGE BELOW.

When video plays, it expands nicely to full page:



 


…and here's another shot of the Station. Could just as well be Goathland Station as Hogsmeade - except for the guy with the pink umbrella:




Actual location:



-Clay

Fantastic modelling Clay. :thumbs

Can you explain more about the "embossing powder and heat gun"……..:roll::roll:  Is it something Mr Potter came up with ? :cheers

I was looking for a solution to add stone wall and shingle texture to existing, curved and flat surfaces without sheathing everything in expensive plastic sheets. After a lot of agony, I stumbled upon scrapbookers' embossing powder in a craft store.

Example: http://store.scrapbook.com/gb-sfj06954.html

I discovered that I could make my own giant "rubber stamp" with using 2-part Room Temerature Vulcanizing (RTV) mold-making material. http://www.micromark.com/one-to-one-and-rapid-mold-rubber-32-fl-oz,7883.html

The result worked great for my application and I am very happy with it. When painted, (dry brushing also is very effective) one can't differentiate between plastic and balsa surfaces - they all look like stone.

Ingenious Clay. :cheers

I've never seen that product before.  Must do some further research. :thumbs

Thank you, Sir.

For the water, I first painted the lake bed a mix of blue and black with some green tones for stagnant shoreline areas.



 

Then I dabbed on Liquitex Gloss gel with a natural sponge to get wave crest shapes. It goes on white, but dries clear.



Here's what it looks like about 8 hours later. The really thick wave crests may take a couple of days to fully dry clear, and the surface will always be just slightly tacky - but not enough to hold fingerprints. 




On the big Hogwarts lake, I first applied latex caulk "waves" smoothed out with wet fingertips before I painted the lake bed. They provided some large, low frequency wave swells that add a nice effect.

I used the same technique for a small 4 foot module depicting a beach on Biscayne Key just south of Miami, Florida. I was even able to sculpt a breaking wave with the caulk. I was really happy with the result:











-Clay

 

Trying to atttach an image - limit of 2M? Let's see how this works…

I don't see where that gets me - how does one view an attached image?

(Click to enlarge)

Clay, once the post has been added into the forum as an attachment, then people have to click on it to see it. The gallery is better for photos, while attachments are ideal for spreadsheets, etc that can be used by other forum members.

Thanks Ron. Do you know if there is an in-house method of uploading a larger image to provide greater detail? I suppose I could post a link to a third party hostig site…

I appreciate your help.

Clay, for a larger image, yes use an off site like Photobucket or similar.

Here are links to photos with better resolution for perusing:

http://i49.tinypic.com/ndqyb9.jpg


http://i46.tinypic.com/vxkoif.jpg

http://i45.tinypic.com/2zgyvkz.jpg
 

I have been wanting to add some characters to the Hogwarts Castle modules and after much consideration, I purchased a box of wargamers' skeleton figures. These will work well for the characters I want to make in 1/87 scale.




I put together heads, torsos and arms. I tried a number of different materials and found that regular bath tissue torn into strips and applied to the figures dampened with a water/white glue mix works best.




When dry, I sprayed with flat black paint. The flash makes it look shiny, but in normal light, there is no shine.




Some dry brushing with gray paint to bring out detail and to lighten the hands/face finishes off my "Dementors":





I made several more, replaced the poles (toothpicks) with fine black wire and will place around the castle grounds.

Next show isn't until October; can't wait.

-Clay

Creepy, definitely creepy. Great addition though.

I'm quaking in my boots ……………scary but excellent.   The kids will really enjoy those Clay :cheers