Thanks, guys but I wasn't fishing for compliments.  Compared to Doug, Pete, John and others  . . .  I guess that what I'm saying is that any improvement I've made has been as a result of what I've learned here.

Sol, Ian and I have a mate who has an On30 layout.  He builds in card.  Everything he does, including rock faces, trees, you name it looks amazing.  For example, he builds each of his trees from a photograph of an actual tree.  We recently visited him for an NMRA meeting and honestly, well we all felt like slinking away.

Anyway, enough of that.  I'm happy that when I make some more movies it will be much better than bare boards.

Wayne, the rooves are styrene - either flat of corrugated; except for the cabinet maker's workshop, which is 200 gsm card.  I sprayed them lightly with fencing touch up paint.  Usually one of a few shades of grey.  That reduces the white colour.  I let varying amounts of the white just show through.  It's important to keep it light with the corrugated sheets, otherwise the paint fills up the corrugations.

Once the roof is in place, I used weathering powders and a soft dry paintbrush.  The spray paint has some tooth and grips the powder.  I used only 4 colours of powder.  Grimy black, grey, white and a rusty brown colour.  Black represents soot around chimneys and also exaggerates shady areas.  The grey and the brown represent grime built up over the years and the white seems to help to blend and lighten the others.

The beauty of the powders is that they can be rubbed off and redone until I'm happy with the result.  The downside is that sweaty fingers leave marks, so handling the buildings needs care.  I had them on and off many times during the process and when I was done, I got out my pots of powder and went over them again.

[user=6]Petermac[/user] wrote:

Really looking forward to seeing the vid. :cheers

and the sound effects :Red Card

Now we can see why Deputy Johnson stopped.  ;-)

. . . and on his day off, too.  :twisted:



Ctrl and scroll the mouse wheel will give you a closer look.  :cool:



The local County maintenance crew has been pollarding trees.

Love all those details!
I am really looking forward to the video!

Thomas

So, now the assorted junk has been assembled and plonked on.



Woody's Custom Cabinets have had a delivery of timber, still in it's plastic wrapping.  His compressor is in place and he has a few discarded drums.



Rhode's got a deal on some earthmover tyres and did a bulk buy.  The scrap tyres are piling up and are due to be railed out to the retread factory.  Empty tyre lube drums are scattered about.



Duke's paint warehouse has a fair bit of bulk stockpiled and Johnson Brothers Engineering have some heavy duty bore pipe ready for the extension to the railway bridge at Stockton.



A shot from Jerusalem Ridge, looking back.



Another shot from the ridge.

It's all just plonked on at this stage.  I won't do any more until after I've looked at it for a while.  Then I'll glue it all in its final place with PVA.  It will be fine for the movie.

My command stations are back from the Lenz hospital.  Hopefully I'll be able to put on my Cecil B hat pretty soon.

Soon to be known as Max B. Demille



copyright is not infringed  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Cecil_B_DeMille_1937.JPG

OK.  As promised; the movie extravaganza of the neon signs . . .

http://www.youtube.com/v/5Vc3eUU3isw

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Vc3eUU3isw%C2%A0%C2%A0

Apologies for the picture quality.  The bright lights were giving me some grief.  :oops:

Enjoyed that, thanks Max.
Apart from the popcorn stuck to my sweater when I spilled it as that loco suddenly appeared.

Great stuff Max. Loved the cafe sign, especially with the letters coming on one at a time. By the way I don't suppose this mate of yours who is obviously a great modeller if he impresses you, and has the On30 layout, could be persuaded to join our little group.

Thanks, Bob.  The signs each have about a dozen different sequences which can be scrolled by a button on the units.

I'll send Peter a link to this thread to see if it whets his appetite.

Good thinking Max. Creep up on 'em from behind and then "Wham", they're in.     :twisted:     :twisted: