Bakewell - Peak District Line BR - Layout Views

[georgeT]

Morning Al, It is good to see how other modeller's make their models, can always pick up a trick or two, thanks for a very interesting thread..

 

GeorgeT

[Alister_G]

Hi Al, Thanks for the step by step and some really good pics of the build. :locomotive: :locomotive:

 

Cheers.

 

Bodgit

 

Hi Andy, thanks very much as always.

 

I really sympathise with how you must be feeling at the moment - not able to do anything much in the way of railway modelling except come on RMWEB and get even more frustrated!

 

Do you get chance to get down to your club for a quick play test-run to relieve the withdrawal symptoms?

 

All the best,

 

Al.

[Alister_G]

Spent a few hours reading through thread. Thoroughly enjoyed it!! Lots of great tips. Your goods shed is amazing. I shall follow along with interest.

 

 

Regards

Scott

 

Hi Scott,

 

Thanks very much, I hope you didn't suffer too much reading all the boring bits!

 

I've been watching your thread for a while, and I'm very envious of the space you have. Once you finalize your track plan I'm sure it will be a great layout, and I will enjoy watching it develop.

 

My next big structure to be built will be the main station building, I'm collecting all the stuff I need and trying to pluck up the courage to start it, at the moment.

 

Cheers,

 

Al.

[Alister_G]

Morning Al, It is good to see how other modeller's make their models, can always pick up a trick or two, thanks for a very interesting thread..

 

GeorgeT

 

Morning George,

 

It's the first plastic kit of a vehicle I've built since I used to do Airfix planes as a kid, so I just followed the instructions, more or less.

 

I'm quite pleased with how it's turned out though, and once I've weathered it a bit to take the shinyness off, it should look OK.

 

You never know, I might be tempted to try my hand at a brass kit, (as you were trying to persuade me to do) the level and fineness of the detail looks much better than anything achievable in plastic.

 

Maybe when I've got the main bits of the layout done, I'll have a go.

 

It's amazing how many different skills you pick up as you go along - if you'd asked me twelve months ago if I'd consider scratch building a goods shed or station I'd have laughed at you, but now... well who knows?

 

Cheers George, thanks for your advice and encouragement,

 

Al.

[Andrew P]

Hi Andy, thanks very much as always.

 

I really sympathise with how you must be feeling at the moment - not able to do anything much in the way of railway modelling except come on RMWEB and get even more frustrated!

 

Do you get chance to get down to your club for a quick play test-run to relieve the withdrawal symptoms?

 

All the best,

 

Al.

Hi Al that is still in the building phase, we have it up and running for the Easter and November Open weekends and then work on it in between. This year we have moved the high level fiddle yard back about a foot to give us a larger scenic area to the front of the layout, so we will start to re lay the fiddle yard next week ready for 30th Nov / 1st Dec.

 

Bodgit

[Alister_G]

I've now more or less completed the painting of the first cattle truck, with rather heavy weathering applied. I might do the next one a bit less, as I went a bit over the top on this one, I think.

 

Anyway, here's a couple of shots:

 

 

 

No couplings or anything added yet, and the roof needs sticking down.

 

I also notice one of the buffers is a bit bent, so I'll fix that as well.

 

I need to cut through the wagon number transfer where it goes over the gap in the planking, but I'll leave it to dry fully before I attempt that.

 

However, there it is, for now.

 

Thanks for looking,

 

Al.

[Rowsley17D]

Hi Al, it looks about ready to deliver some prize animals for Bakewell show.

 

I don't know about the kit being 30 years old, I'd say well over 50, unless they did a revamp in the 80s.

[Alister_G]

The first cattle truck is done now.

 

With grateful thanks to Jason (Sandside) who has very kindly supplied me with sufficient small tension-locks to re-couple a fleet , thanks mate, much appreciated.

 

So here it is, in its rightful place next to the cattle dock.

 

 

This evening, I've been playing with the photo editing software again.

 

Here's Buxton based Crab 42942 coasting through Bakewell on the way to Rowsley with a mixed freight:

 

 

Meanwhile, another unidentified Crab and a very grubby left-hand drive 4F, both from Rowsley, take the strain up the gradient towards Hassop with a heavy coal train:

 

 

More soon,

 

Thanks for looking,

 

Al.

[C&WR]

The wagon & dock go very well together, Al. You must be very pleased!

[Jason T]

As I remove more of them to replace with three links, you are more than welcome to them Al. You may have noticed that I included some other types, suitable for Parkside kits...........

[Andrew P]

The first cattle truck is done now.

 

With grateful thanks to Jason (Sandside) who has very kindly supplied me with sufficient small tension-locks to re-couple a fleet , thanks mate, much appreciated.

 

So here it is, in its rightful place next to the cattle dock.

 

cattle-truck037.jpg

 

This evening, I've been playing with the photo editing software again.

 

Here's Buxton based Crab 42942 coasting through Bakewell on the way to Rowsley with a mixed freight:

 

crab-003.jpg

 

Meanwhile, another unidentified Crab and a very grubby left-hand drive 4F, both from Rowsley, take the strain up the gradient towards Hassop with a heavy coal train:

 

freight-001.jpg

 

More soon,

 

Thanks for looking,

 

Al.

Evening Al, The cattle truck looks good, and I like the weathering mate, well done. :locomotive: :locomotive:

 

I was looking in a book about the Swadlincote Branch today by a local author and there is a picture in there of a 4F and Crab double heading through Swad.

 

Cheers

Bodgit

[Alister_G]

Evening Al, The cattle truck looks good, and I like the weathering mate, well done. :locomotive: :locomotive:

 

I was looking in a book about the Swadlincote Branch today by a local author and there is a picture in there of a 4F and Crab double heading through Swad.

 

Cheers

Bodgit

 

Hi Andy, thanks very much.

 

Just for you, here's a shot from the hillside overlooking the yard:

 

 

Cheers,

 

Al.

[Andrew P]

Hi Andy, thanks very much.

 

Just for you, here's a shot from the hillside overlooking the yard:

 

freight-002.jpg

 

Cheers,

 

Al.

Nice Al, in fact Very Very nice mate,       I wish I could do multiple ticks EVEN THOUGH I HATE THEM , I STILL USE THEM,      just how hypocritical is that , hahhahah

 

Bodgit

[Removed a/c]

Brilliant photo Al

[georgeT]

Hello Al, Really must  say l love the way its all coming together, and that backscene is great, really sets the scene..

 

GeorgeT

[Rowsley17D]

I like that colour photo Al, but it looks as though somebody has swept away the town!

[C&WR]

Great pic. I am genuinely unsure where scenery ends & backscene starts!

Edited September 12, 2013 by C&WR

[Jaz]

I agree wit hall the above, excellent photo, love the dried grass colour, and the sweep to back scene. One for the how realistic is your model? I think.

[Rowsley17D]

I think there is a degree of photoshopography going on here.

[Alister_G]

As I remove more of them to replace with three links, you are more than welcome to them Al. You may have noticed that I included some other types, suitable for Parkside kits...........

 

Thanks very much Jason, really appreciate this. If there's anything I can help you with just ask.

 

Al.

[Alister_G]

Brilliant photo Al

 

 

Hello Al, Really must  say l love the way its all coming together, and that backscene is great, really sets the scene..

 

GeorgeT

 

 

I like that colour photo Al, but it looks as though somebody has swept away the town!

 

 

Great pic. I am genuinely unsure where scenery ends & backscene starts!

 

 

I agree wit hall the above, excellent photo, love the dried grass colour, and the sweep to back scene. One for the how realistic is your model? I think.

 

 

I think there is a degree of photoshopography going on here.

 

 

At the risk of seeming lazy, I'm going to answer you all in one post.

 

Firstly, thank you very much for your kind comments, I really appreciate them.

 

Secondly, I'm going to show you that perhaps I'm not as clever as you give me credit for!

 

As Jonathan says above (and I love the word!) there is indeed a smidgeon of photoshopography going on

 

So to start, here is the original untainted photo that I took:

 

 

To answer Jaz, I really can't take credit for the colour of the dried grass, as it's simply the Hanging Basket Liner as it comes on the roll, although the section furthest from the camera on the other side of the yard has been blended in a bit with some scatter, but the section the camera is resting on is simply thrown over the papier-mache hillside - it's not had anything done to it yet, not even glued down.

 

Once I've got the basic photo, the next job is to use a graphics program to remove the bits I don't want. I use Paint Shop Pro, but Photoshop, Paint.NET, Gimp and others all have the basic functionality required. (NOT Windows Paint though!)

 

So, firstly, using a freehand selection tool, I roughly go around the bits we want to keep, leaving a margin for error and for tidying up later:

 

 

Then I "Cut" the selected section:

 

 

Leaving this:

 

 

Then I zoom in close to a section of the image to do the finer more detailed trimming:

 

 

Gradually, I trim away all the bits I don't want:

 

 

 

Until I'm left with this:

 

 

Now, I use another tool, commonly known as a "Magic Wand" which selects all parts of an image with similar colours. The sensitivity can be altered to get just a single colour or a suitable range. In this case I select all the cut away bits, and then "Invert" the selection so it leaves all the cut away bits, and just keeps the bits we want.

 

Then I "Copy" the whole lot, and save it as a new transparent image.

 

 

Then I get a suitable background image:

 

 

and then "Paste" my saved image on top:

 

 

I can then adjust it to get the sky and landscape where I want it.

 

Finally, I crop the finished image so you only see the bits I want.

 

...

 

And that's all there is to it, really...

 

 

I hope you don't think I'm a big fraud now!

 

Joking apart, I hope you find this useful, It really isn't hard, although I admit I'm getting better with practice.

 

Thanks for looking,

 

Al.

Edited September 12, 2013 by acg_mr

[Alister_G]

I like that colour photo Al, but it looks as though somebody has swept away the town!

 

Thanks Jonathan.

 

Yep, I've really struggled to find a vantage point to take a photo across the valley and town from the right angle, which isn't blocked by trees.

 

Unfortunately, everything is way more overgrown now than it was when the Station was open.

 

Al.

[C&WR]

A very nice tutorial!  I genuinely thought you'd put one of the better commercial backscenes behind the layout, but was wondering if some of the closer more green stuff was actually the model.

[Jaz]

Now I know why I like the 'greenery' I hit Homebase a couple of days ago I bought some green sisal for hanging baskets and I think the other stuff is the same as yours. Great minds think alike.

(oi who said fools never differ!!!)I've been cuttin mine up to amke smaller patches.

Nice job with the photoshopping still takes skill.

[Alister_G]

Congratulations Jaz, you're the 500th Poster to this thread!

 

As a prize, I was going to offer you these:

 

 

...but then, I thought, if you ate all of those at once, you'd need one of these:

 

 

So instead, how about this:

 

 

 

Cheers Jaz, thanks for your continued interest and support,

 

All the best,

 

Al.