Bricks & Mortar (1)
Cardboard sketches are one thing, proper models another. Time to get on and work out a way of doing the buildings on Swan Hill that can be done within a reasonable time scale (I've no idea what that really means) and which fit the overall picture of Swan Hill that I had in mind at the outset. There is no "backscene" exactly, the present enterprise is more in the way of whole building that's cut off because there's a wall in the way - in other words, there ain't much width to play with.
Drawing stuck down to 1.5mm mounting board...
Base coat of Middelstone colour from Vallejo - approximately the colour of a newish London stock brick.
First set of cuts for apertures - the cuts which aren't windows or doors are a bridge beam and parapet... more of that anon
The back tells the story: the overall thickness is now a scale 'one and a half brick' wall - a sandwich of two layers of 1.5mm mounting board and hardwood filling.
The gable is a scale one brick thick and the apertures for windows have a half brick reveal (4.5") on the outside. The long, uninterupted edge is bevelled to fit against the railway room wall:
the only edge which mates with the rest of the visible model is cut with a 45 degree mat cutter to make a mitred joint - the brick courses will run round the corner in the proper fashion.
The facade courses have been scribed in with a just-not-quite-sharp point, the street doors fitted together with a rivetted beam above: cills are in (not glued yet)
and the ventilator louvres in the gable pushed into place.
45 degree bevel...
Where it fits on the layout...
Some colour and texure reference examples - I've collected dozens over time
and sketches of brickwork - the courses and perpends are incised in these examples.
A couple of examples of real things - a rather clunky brick terraced house which tries too hard but I love the dog tooth brick cornice and there are other clues for models -
the depth of window reveals and shadowing from cills and cornice in particular. The other picture is a bridge abutment, actually the truss bridge over Little Petherick Creek near Padstow.
I particularly like the combination of rivetted plate structure and masonry and this abutment has it all: battered piers, troughed floor, curved ends to the ironwork above...not to mention
the fine array of lichens. Much still to be done... Part 2 of Bricks and Mortar to follow....
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