New beginnings

This building has been sitting on my workbench for quite awhile. I was thinking of using it as a photo prop while I was taking the Hot Wheels pictures last summer – but the idea drifted away and it continued to sit there. However, it did kick-off some meandering thoughts about finishing it. And after awhile, looking for a little lightweight diversion, I started to pick at it and do a little here and a little there. Finally it started to come together into something interesting.

Before painting the building I washed it thoroughly with soap and water. Debra saw it drying by the kitchen sink and wondered why a mouse had nibbled on the walls. Well, it does kinda look like some hungry rodent mistook it for stale cheese!

Once dry, the actual painting I did on this building is much simpler than that shown on the box – I had to take into account my limited skills and patience with this project. I first painted all the walls with hull red, the doors green, and the roof a loose mixture of light and dark gray. Once the walls were dry I glopped on white paint and then wiped off most of it before it dried in order to just fill the mortar lines. Once they had dried, I dry brushed a little brown and rust on the bricks to provide a little colour variation. Then things got a little ragged. I proceeded to put on successive layers of loose mixtures of browns, grays and black to add weathering and depth. I stopped when I got to a point that seemed ok to me.

After all that the roof still didn’t look quite right to me. Some toy solar panels I had on the shelf above the work bench caught my eye and seemed to fit well on the non-bombed out section of roof tiles, so on they went. The windmill came in the same set as the solar panels and seemed to be a fit for the addition. I then rummaged through my stash of left-over detail items to see if anything else might fit this scene. I added a ladder to get up on the roof to maintain the solar panels and windmill. And inside I added an Airstream trailer for the home of the new resident. The walls and roof of the brick building act as something of a pre-buffer against the elements.

Even though it isn’t HO-scale it doesn’t look out-of-place on the new layout. I’m trying out different locations amongst the E. L. Moore buildings and it seems to fit in just fine.