An indoor diorama in G-scale

Well it's been about a fortnight since my last update - some business admin which could not be put off any longer prevented me from posting anything last weekend...

So here we are, with a bit more progress - I decided that some canal-side cottages would look neat, but I also decided that to add a bit of character, they'd look good with steps leading from the front door down to the tow-path:





Once again, the Milliput was pressed into service:



Then I started on the buildings themselves:









Hopefully some more progress tomorrow

I'm sure I've seen a place like that on my travels....Dudley comes to mind...

That adds some great perspective and different focal points.

Are you going to super-detail the houses? You could just go forever with this if you do.
What an excellent idea and place for all the figures to 'live'.

Great start on the buildings!

Thanks Carl, Paul. I imagine that there will be numerous spots around the Midlands where canals and railways intersected. I have to say, though, that this is all from my imagination!

The houses, whilst they may look infeasibly narrow, are fairly representative of houses in industrial Britain in the 19th century. Indeed, the design is (or will be) based on a photo I have of the one occupied by my great grandmother, who ran a shop from her house in Bristol until the 1920's. Sadly, the Luftwaffe consigned the whole row of houses to rubble one night in 1941 - all except the house on the end, which still stands today. In place of the 15 or so houses that were destroyed, 6 semi-detached dwellings now stand!

Some modest progress this weekend, owing to some other domestic obligations... I managed to scribe some brickwork and flagstones into the base of the building:



A close-up of the flagstones, with some 'cracks' in one or two of them:



I also did a little filling in of the tow-path, where I had to rearrange the base of the buildings. You can see where I previously spray-painted it, and have had to retrospectively re-apply some more Milliput:



The only other thing I managed to do this weekend was cut some more pieces which will eventually make up the whole housing unit when glued together - I didn't think pictures of lumps of flooring would be that educational! Hopefully more progress on that next weekend...

More progress this weekend:

Firstly, I managed to locate the legs for the baseboard, after a foraging expedition to the back of the garage:



Flushed with that success, I set about spraying the siding retaining wall - just the base colour at this stage:



I also decided to redo the track surfaces, using some discontinued laminated mdf kitchen flooring panels, turned upside down:



I will be modelling the trackwork directly on to these.

Then today I continued cladding everything that isn't moving in yet more Milliput:





Hopefully more progress next weekend!

Reminds me of an article I just read in the Financial Times...

***NEWSFLASH***
The sale of Milliput shows a remarkable unprecedented rise in the last week, especially in the Portsmouth region. According to sources, this sculpting mass is used experimentally but strongly successful in the construction of sidewalks, buildings and even bridges and quays. Will this trend continue? If so, will the rising of the Milliput stocks help the world market to recover again and save the world from crises?

Euh.. just keep up the good work Clive!

Funnily enough, when my wife went to the local model shop recently, to get me another 6 packs (!), the guy mentioned that for some strange reason they'd had a bit of a run on the stuff recently, so were soon going to have to order some more when normally they wouldn't have to for a few months at least!

A bit more progress on the house front(s):



I am now down to my last 2 packs of Milliput, so I shall need some more pretty soon. I still have the far end of the terrace to do which will probably use up my last remaining stocks of the stuff.

... and a bit more progress last night - for those of you who are by now sick of the sight of large expanses of pale yellowy putty - I applied the first layer of paint to the siding retaining wall:



Hopefully it will look a bit more world-weary by the time I am done with it

A bit more...

Some ageing:


And the tunnel facia similarly begins its transformation:


OK, let's see how they both look in place:


... and with those houses back in place:


... and finally a 'helicopter' shot of the overall look:


Next weekend is the last weekend before its first outing at Wickham 2011, so we are definitely going as a 'work in progress'!

It will be interesting to see what people's reactions are Wickham.

Looking around the web I don't think there is very much on par with what you are doing.

Now you have got this far it looks like the Regent's Canal at St Pancras before the development.

I'm very much looking forward to it. I've been pretty well received there in the last couple of years just doing the figure-making demos, so it's possible that this will generate even more interest. We will see!

You should apply for sponsorship from ‘Millput’. Great interesting work Clive.

OK, last little bit of progress before the big day next Saturday... The big wall on the end-terrace house has received its obligatory coating of Milliput:



Then I set to doing some weathering of the tow-paths... firstly, paint the edging stones with a bone colour; then, when dry, follow up with a wash of thinned black acrylic:



Then, create a mossy, green effect by applying various shades of green to the paths with a sponge:



Remember the tunnel portal? That then got the same treatment as the siding retaining wall - various shades of brown applied with a sponge, as well as the bone colour picking out the tunnel mouth:



Then a revisit to the aforementioned siding wall, to make it look a bit mossy:



Whilst I was in the mood for 'mossing things up' (or is that messing things up?), I turned my attention to the canal itself, which for my money was now looking a bit too pristine, and nowhere near as dishevelled as an abandoned canal ought to be:



So, put all that together, and what do you get:









So that's as far as I got for the show! Hopefully, if I get a chance, I will get some pics of it laid out at the show, with a few figures dotted about.

Quote :

Hopefully, if I get a chance, I will get some pics of it laid out at the show

Looking forward to see those!

Amazing detail it should drawer a lot of interest at the show.

Some more modest progress this weekend - No2 Canal Street now has full brickwork scribed:



A bit closer:



As you can see I also have the beginnings of some steps leading down from the track side, past the end of the terrace.

I also added the other roof supports at the rear of Nos 2 and 4, to fully support the roof structures when I finally get round to it:




Hopefully some more progress next weekend...

I just can't believe you scribe all that brickwork by hand.

And so precise and neat. I even magnified it to see if you were cheating, but no....I can see the scribe marks!

I would lose patience after about the 3rd course and then I'd go and see that nice man at Imagimonde.....

To be honest I can see the unevenness in some of the courses - a similar thing happened with the other brickwork that has gone before. But one thing I have noticed with the tunnel mouth and siding retaining walls, was that the differences in the thickness of the courses became a whole lot less obvious once I'd painted and weathered them.

More modest progress this weekend...

The steps leading down past the end of the terrace of houses:



And the ensemble, with all brickwork scribed, and some of it even spray primed with dark brown:

Clive, amising detail on this Diarama did you ever get round to fineshing it or has life got in the way?

Hi Peter, no I never got round to finishing this - real life has indeed gotten in my way. I'm not sure if I ever will finish it, to be honest - it doesn't have a permanent home where I can store it safely. It's been left in the conservatory for the past 15 months; consequently it has suffered some damage by virtue of being in the wrong place at the wrong time. I need to summon up the will to do the necessary repairs first, then find a permanent safe place for it - I can't see that happening any time soon.

Filed under "Nice idea, but...", I think.

Blimey, did you do the brick work by hand? Nobel Prize in the offing? I´ve served my time, and I go for brick paper, though the future K&NWLR rack railway viaduct will probably prove me wrong, again.

Yes, brick- and stone-work all scribed by hand - very much a labour of love obviously. Just a personal preference I guess, but it looks a bit better when painted and dry-brushed etc

clive_t wrote:

Yes, brick- and stone-work all scribed by hand - very much a labour of love obviously. Just a personal preference I guess, but it looks a bit better when painted and dry-brushed etc

I agree with you, though if things are quite some distance 1.5 - 2+m from the viewer, I think that brick paper actually doesn´t look too bad. The new mill on the Kent side of the K&NWLR is actually covered in paper and does look quite good (he said, coughing modestly).
But the viaduct for the rack railway is so close to the viewer that it has to be done the old-fashioned way, though I´m using "styrodur", which is quite quick to do. Well, I use the word "quick" in its geological sense.