Art Deco Chapters: Grand Opening

Once I got the new printer in operation I finished the sign. As I mentioned in a previous post, it’s simply a photo of an actual store sign, reduced and enhanced a bit to fit to the sign-board. It’s printed on glossy photo paper. When the ink was dry I cut the sign out with a sharp knife and glued it to a 0.020 inch styrene backing sheet with white glue. When that assembly was dry, the excess plastic was trimmed away with a knife and scissors to arrive at the final shape. Some thin plastic strips were glued to the back so the sign would standoff from the signboard. The edges of the sign were carefully painted with flat black, and the back was painted with flat aluminum. A black plastic strip was attached to the bottom of the sign to finish it off. It looks pretty good when glued to the signboard if I do say so myself.

That’s it. Done.

Well, after I sat back and looked at the model for awhile I added a roof vent from the Walther’s roof details accessory pack the air conditioner came from. I also over-painted the roof again with a loosely mixed thin wash of PolyScale dust and flat black and thinner. If I were to do this again, I’d surface the main roof with a sheet of fine sandpaper as I did the roof overhanging the sidewalk. It would give it a more interesting texture, and better distinguish it from the parking lot when viewed from above.

I spent a bit of time arranging figures and cars to help bring the scene to life. All of the figures are from Woodland Scenics except for the cyclists which are from Preiser.

That husband and wife standing by the ’79 Impala while the wife rummages though a giant purse looking for her car keys started life as two figures from the Woodland Scenics ‘Window Shoppers’ HO-scale figures set. After studying the figures for awhile I flashed on what would be the ‘searching-for-keys-in-a-giant-purse-by-an-old-car-in-a-parking-lot’ scene. I flashed on the overheard ‘Oscar and Emma’ style dialogue too.

Husband: Hurry up! I’ll miss Green Acres.
Wife: They’re in here somewhere.
Husband: Hmmmmm.
Wife: You’ve seen every episode a hundred times.
Husband: Maybe there’ll be something new.
Wife: Don’t worry. If I can’t find them I’ll use OnStar
Husband: This is a ’79 Impala. OnStar hasn’t been invented yet.
, and so on......

Debra was a little cool to the dialogue, but agreed to its essential truthiness. But, at a later unveiling with Sylvie and Poon, Poon reminded me that in the apparent timeframe of this HO world, strictly speaking, Chapters isn’t invented yet either, so it’s all kinda moot.

I need to do some weathering and detailing work on the cars. Most don’t have license plates, some are too clean, others don’t have side-view mirrors, and so on.

The Walther’s Silver Springs Bus Terminal kit has lots of potential: diner, café, movie theatre, other brands of stores, all come to mind. Also makes a nice bus terminal!