Thursday 27 May 2010

Fiat petrol station



The petrol station has finally got some paint on it, still need to tidy up some of the joints, just wipe some filler down them. I used some prints of pre war Italian motoring posters from the web to liven it up a bit. Still need to finish painting the petrol pumps, made from beads and plastic tubes with wire from a paper clip supper glued down the middle to keep it all in place. Worked out well in the end, not an identical copy of the original, but in the spirit of, as they say. Will finish of the painting about 80% there, just need to put a bit more detail in. Original post was back in December last year under plans for 2010, with a link to the real life version of this model. I just love it when a plan works.

Wednesday 19 May 2010

Blitz - Freeze Snow 2




The snowing up of terrain sample two, lots more bits and bobs on this test piece, burnt out house, small stream, shell holes, barbed wire, bunker and bridge. Barbed wire was made from wire pan scrubber, bedded into PVA glue. No white spray paint first on this one. Just strait into applying the snow gunk with a brush direct onto the terrain. The spray white flattened out the contrast in the colour of the terrain on the first test piece. Applying the snow direct onto the terrain keeps the contrast stronger. Works better for me. I may use the white spray paint on some trees in future, before they are positioned on the terrain. This second test confirms the original idea that the terrain will be produced as partially thawed, with areas of snow and areas of thawed ground. Rather than a totally white arctic type layout.

Sunday 2 May 2010

The Fish Market



A long story - cut short, plastic fish for fish sauce from a Sushi pre packed lunch. It was just crying out to be used in some type of terrain project. Then it come to me in a flash of inspiration, Mussolini's famous attempt at cornering the world pilchards market in the late 1920's with the building of a fleet of ocean going pilchard boats and the construction of a number of on shore facilities to support the fleet, located around the Italian empire, including Fish Markets, Smoking houses and freezing plants. However the wall St crash of 1929 resulted in the bottom falling out of the market, and the infrastructure fell into disrepair.

All of the above may or may not be true, the plastic fish however lives on.
The market was built from foam core card for the concrete base, plastic sprue from an aircraft kit for the cast iron support posts, hot glued into position, card for the roof and the freezer store room, I hand painted the fish advert on the freezer room. Next project is the smoke house, which will involve a tube of lemon sherbet.