Thanks Mikkel.  The Vallejo Air range are highly transparent, particularly when airbrushed.  The sand, grey sand and similar seem to have good staining qualities on an untreated (e.g. varnished) white ground but remain transparent - the particular one used here is 71.031 Middlestone.  The downside is that the colour won't cover anything you don't want to see so some care needed not to get adhesive or anything on the "facework".  I coated the paper at the start of cutting and inscribing as it toughens it up - similar to shellac, I guess. 

As to pressure applied - I don't do as many bricks as a decent brick layer would do in one go (1000 bricks per day?)  - short burts of 10 to 15 minutes at a time is more than enough with breaks doing something else in between. Inevitable variation follows.  In fact, that facade took 6 or 8 sessions so it's not quite as batty* as it might seem.  The real challenge comes next: turning the base colour/texture into something resembling the examples of real brickwork shown above and, at the same time, keeping to the very restricted colour palette intended for the layout overall (not including the trains!).

Kit PW

* (pun intended)

Hi Airnimal:  the whole spec + commentary!  The paper is white 90gsm for ink jet printing.  The drawing was plotted on A3 sheet size on an HP plotter [I tried our Samsung A4 laser printer but it wasn't quite accurate enough: if it were a square "grid", after 100mm or so, the square was no longer quite square - ok for a letter but not to ensure that brick courses line up round a corner].  The paper was fixed with 3M Display Mount - their 'permanent' type, not the 'repositionable' type [I tried the repositionable (as it's cheaper) but found that the short lines, the "perpends", dragged a bit under the stylus].

Probably unnecessary, but I use an ancient small rubber faced roller [Lino printing outfit, Xmas 1962?] to make sure it's all gone down flat [excess glue can ooze out on the edges so care needed not to move any glue onto the "facework"].  I airbrushed the lot at that stage to size the paper surface.

The stylus is a short length of steel round which happens to fit an old clutch pencil. The end is turned to a point and got as smooth as possible to avoid damaging the paper surface - it just needs to be embossed, not cut - so the tip is sharpened and then polished round [like a biro tip, but finer]  using a paste designed for leather strops which I happened to have to hand.  A few tries on a test piece soon tells whether it's ok for the job.

Yes, I do the horizontal lines first and that allows me to feel the start and end points of the vertical perpends [I have limited 3D vision at the moment, pending minor surgery, so "feel" helps "see"]: I've overrun the finish on quite a few but not too disastrously.  I find a clear perspex straightedge/set square better than a steel rule as I can see what's under it.  Other than that, I just follow the lines on the paper as closely as I can.  How long to do the embossing? I mentioned in reply to Mikkel above that I do about 10 to 15 minutes here and there, over a day or so.  In all, I think I did 6 to 8 shifts on that facade - so let's say 80 minutes tops for the lot and, with the fine weather, some of the outside redecorating got done in between. 

Wonderful, and some fantastic inspirational photos. I have a feeling my next layout is going to involve a good deal of london brick, so keeping a weather eye on the developments here.

38 minutes ago, Lacathedrale said:

a good deal of london brick

Thanks Lacathedrale:  I've amassed quite a collection of photos of brickwork - I get some funny looks though.  Just the other day, I was taking a photo of a wall adjacent to Charing X station which had no other features other than it was made of London stocks - to all intents and purposes, a blank wall.  A couple of passers-by stopped to take a second look at the blank wall, then looked at me and, I guess, decided not to ask...  Amazing the variety that develops with time, weather, pollution, repointing and so on - it's hard to believe that somewhere under it all there is the same London stock brick.

I posted this on the "Whacky signs" thread but it really belongs here as well.

Paper Buildings, Inner Temple, London.   Paper Buildings are on the site of Heyward's Buildings, constructed in 1610. The "paper" part of the name comes from the fact that they were built from timber, lath and plaster, a construction method known as "paperwork".  The 1610, the buildings were destroyed in a fire and replaced with the present design by Robert Smirke in the 1830s.

42 minutes ago, Mikkel said:

would the writing date from the 1830s?

I would guess so.  It's quite skinny, uses the archaic "V" for a "U" and the serifs are rather spare (and may well have been drawn with a quill by a person with a green eye shield).  The letter style is used on signs in the Temple generally.  I believe that due to the Temple's ancient origins and some royal charter or other, there is no duty on alchohol so I would guess that the solicitors would be 'Laugh and Plastered' by the end of the day - Smirke (of which there were two actually: brothers), the architect, sounds straight out of Dickens but before you ask, I didn't make it up.