A problem in composition

The mountain top observatory

As I was adding trees to the layout I came to realize that the sight lines they formed drew the viewer’s eye up to the mountain top, but upon arriving, there was nothing there to see. I couldn’t just add another tree or two, that would be rather anti-climatic. 

Sight lines lead to nothing to see at the mountain top

I gave this compositional problem some thought and decided to add a small observatory on the mountain top somewhere near where the tree sight lines met. The Mt. Lowe Railway had a large observatory along its right-of-way, so I thought some sort of observatory was a good addition: it solved a compositional problem, and introduced a feature I admired from the prototype. 

I built a close approximation in N-scale to the actual Mt. Lowe Observatory many years ago. At that time I was still in the dreaming stage about what a Mt. Lowe inspired layout would be. Back then I thought I’d land on N-scale, so, being intrigued by the observatory, I went ahead and built one.

I played with the idea of incorporating the N-scale one on this layout as part of some sort of forced perspective scheme, but the upshot was N scale was too small, and even HO seemed difficult to adopt. Eventually I figured I’d build an observatory in S similar in size and proportion to one of the small ones on the grounds of Ottawa’s Experimental Farm, but in Mt. Lowe style.

The Photo Equatorial Building at the Experimental Farm

The Farm ones are built from stone, but I thought something inspired by them in the Mt. Lowe white wood theme would be possible. At one time I was going to place one of these small observatories on the Centennial Experimental Farm layout, but after producing some HO scale drawings I thought they’d be too small and fiddly to build. In S scale though, a small observatory was quite doable.

The building was designed around the roof from the N-scale Mt. Lowe observatory

Composition in general is a topic I’ve been thinking quite a lot about lately along with light & shadow, impressionism, structure & construction, and streetcar potential. I’m considering exploring these topics here at the blog as they relate to my work. They’re becoming more important to me, and writing about them will help me understand them better.

Well, that’s for the future, let’s get back to the observatory.

I decided to build the S-scale observatory around the roof of the old N-scale one. In N, the roof fitted over a large telescope room, but in S it would cover a smaller structure whose size was more inline with the other structures on the layout. So, the old roof established the width of the building. The height was decided on by some trial-and-error until I settled on a dimension that looked right and didn't overshadow the other structures.

The 8 walls are laid out in a single, contiguous strip of Bristol board.

The building is quite simple as far as construction goes. The only slightly tricky part is laying out the walls so that the resulting octagonal footprint will allow the roof to sit on top. 

The building's 8 walls were laid out in a contiguous strip on a piece of Bristol board (much like was done with Cal's Cabbage Co.) in accordance with this formula:

wall width = radius of the roof dome / 1.307

For this model the radius of the roof dome is 1-1/4 inches, and after a little arithmetical handspring, the wall width works out to be 24.3 mm.

I should also note that the door opening is a scale 3' x 7', and the foundation is 3' tall. 

The floor was drawn on a scrap of Bristol board using a grade school compass trick.

The other possibly difficult piece is the floor, which was drawn on a piece of Bristol board using a compass trick I learned in grade school.

The wall strip was cut out and the wall divisions were scored with the back edge of an X-acto knife for folding. Along the inside top edge of the foundation, along the wall strip, some thick cardboard pieces were stuck in place to support the floor. The wall strip was then wrapped around the floor.

I should note I used 3M Transfer Tape for all 'gluing' as it's a dry method and doesn't distort the card as the pieces are being put together. It also bonds instantly so when putting together a slightly tricky structure like this one there's no fumbling around getting the structure together due to bonds that haven't set up. 

The wall wrapper gap is fixed by gluing a strip of paper along the inside.

Look at that gap :-( So, even after some careful work to get the dimensions right I still wound up with a small gap at the wall wrapper joint. It's likely due to approximation errors when laying out the wall strip and floor, not properly accounting for the thickness of the card, and 'squeezed' cardboard at the folds that distorted the pieces a little.

Regardless, it was easily corrected. I simply added a paper strip to close the gap. When it came time to panel the wall exteriors I adjusted the dimensions of the two walls bordering the gap by about 1mm. Once they were in place, and with trim glued on, the structure looks perfect and no gap is noticeable. I guess my advice here is: small errors are usually easily corrected and can be made to disappear. 

A thick cardboard stiffener was added to the inside upper edge.

The last step in building the underlying structure is to add a stiffener to the inside top. This provides support for the roof and turns the rather floppy telescope room into a rigid structure. The stiffener is cut from a piece of cardboard and is dimensioned to allow the roof to set easily on top.

From here on the remaining work is mainly decorative. 

Although the structural core is cardboard and paper, the exterior is styrene.

Textured styrene sheets were transfer taped to the cardboard core.

I used textured styrene sheets bonded to the exterior with transfer tape. That's another good use for this tape: sticking together dissimilar materials, especially card stock and styrene.

The foundation is surfaced with the same rocky sheet material I used on the structure at Inspiration Point to produce a family look between the two buildings. When it came to painting, I also painted this one to match the other.

The walls are covered with Evergreen Scale Models #2050 V-Groove.

Trim is strip styrene.

Wall trim is a mixture of 0.020"x0.060" and 0.020"x0.080" styrene strip stock glued to the panels with styrene glue.

The door is just a laminate of two pieces of 0.020" thick styrene scraps. Later a bent wire was added to simulate a door handle. 

Top edge cap cut from 0.020" thick styrene, edged with 0.040" square styrene strips.

The final styrene piece was a cap to fit over the top edge of the now panelled structure to neatly close off the top, and to provide a structure to hold the protruding bottom edge of the roof dome in place. 

Upper styrene cap in place; painted and weathered. Interior is painted khaki. 

The roof isn't glued in place, but has been left loose and removable so I can later add a telescope and let viewers see inside. I'm thinking of a telescope model along the lines of the one I built for the El Camino Estrella.

Now the sight lines lead to something.

After painting and a light weathering I spent sometime playing around positioning the observatory. I'm happy with the new feature and its location on the layout. It seems to take care of a visual dead spot in an interesting way that keeps to the overall spirit of the layout. 

Precariously balanced high above the Circular Bridge.

A piece of 0.100" thick styrene was cut for the structure's layout base - it's the white sliver under the observatory in the above photo. The base is attached to the mountain with a blob of Das. There's still work to be done to build out the mountain ground-forms to blend in the base. For now though it's solid and level, which is a good start.

From above the Granite Gate Pass

As well as blending the foundation into the mountain some extra details will be added to suggest an abandoned trail to the observatory. Probably a couple more trees will be added along with some overgrown vegetation. 

Although, when adding all these extra details I need to be mindful to keep the total height of the layout below 30" so it can be carried sideways through door frames! Right now it stands only 23" tall - so far, so good.

Studies in Forced Perspective

HO (1:87), Model Power | OO (1:76), Airfix | S (1:64), Mini Prints

Selective Compression [alternate #2]

Selective Compression [alternate #2]: The technique of shortening the length and width of a building, but not its height to make a building seem taller.

Use: Mona used selective compression to enhance the canyon-like feeling of her model of Toronto's downtown core.  

Source: This variation on the widely used term was introduced by Tom Bailey in the 2nd part of his series A Visit to the past that appeared in the April 1981 issue of Railroad Model Craftsman.

As well as defining his use of the term selective compression, Mr. Bailey notes some of the technique's pros and cons:

This sometimes means the aspect ratio of a prototype building gets severely distorted, but since my buildings are mostly impressions of real buildings rather than scaled representations, I don't suffer too badly. And I do reap one important benefit: The trains seem to fit better.

He also notes some philosophy on the visual impact caused by the height of objects on a layout:

Of all the dimensions, I think we respond more to the height of something than to any other dimension. A towering building is somehow more impressive than one that sprawls; a very tall tree gets more reaction than a hedgerow. With models, a tall building or tree (in believable surroundings, of course) does more to create a feeling of relative size than a ten-foot straightaway.

This use of selective compression is another in a series of entries on how to shape layout space to achieve certain visual effects and induce emotional impressions in viewers. We have discussed such things as other definitions of selective compression beyond the standard, and strategic placement of small buildings to enhance spaciousness. Future editions of the dictionary plan to include a special section on spatial manipulation techniques. 

from The Dictionary of Non-Existent Model Railroad Terms, 3rd ed., 2019.

Use small to seem large

Use small to seem large: Use small buildings and structures to make a layout's space seem large.

Usage: Use small to seem large was the guiding design principle on Brian's basement sized N-scale layout of the Canadian prairies.

Source: The 'Use small to seem large' design concept, first developed and articulated by John Allen on his Gorre & Daphetid RR, was reported by Earl Cochrane in the October 1955 Railroad Model Craftsman article, Sunset on the old G & D:

I was quite surprised to learn from John that he used small buildings and structures on his pike. He said that his structures were not underscaled, as I at first thought, but rather small in prototype size. By using small structures in this way, it made the layout look larger and gave a better perspective. Large buildings on a small pike look out of place.

Update to 2nd ed., 1999: For a contrasting design philosophy tailored more to urban and suburban settings refer to Art Curren's article, The BTR RR., in the September 1980 issue of Model Railroader. Mr. Curren discusses how to eliminate feelings of brief travel times and short distances on a small layout (in this article the layout measures 5' x 9') by using features like having tightly packed industrial areas separated by treed residential areas butted up against them, lots of non-railroad buildings, tall buildings that block views, a variety of levels, steep grades, and streets that twist and turn in many directions. The net effect being that the layout seems larger than its relatively diminutive footprint would suggest.

Update to 3rd ed., 2019: Selective Compression [alternate] is a variation on the 'Use small to seem large' concept in that the buildings and structures are neither compressed nor underscaled, and are used to manipulate the viewer's perception of the size of the layout's space.

from The Dictionary of Non-Existent Model Railroad Terms, 1st ed., 1959.

Selective Compression [alternate]

Selective Compression: [alternate] The placement of uncompressed objects into a compressed landscape to create the illusion of great distance in a small area.

Usage: I used selective compression to model the scene along Ocean Boulevard.

Source: John Ostler proposes this alternative definition in his article, In defense of freelancing, that appeared in the December 2002 issue of Railroad Model Craftsman. Mr Ostler states:

Selective compression is mentioned frequently by model railroad writers; however, it is rarely defined. Here is my definition for it: selective compression is the placement of uncompressed objects into a compressed landscape to create the illusion of great distance in a small area. This definition is different from the usual one, as you can see.

The usual definition is something like this: a technique to remove redundant visual and spatial elements from a building to distill it down in size to just the features that make it useful on a layout [refer to the main entry on Selective Compression for a fuller explanation].

from The Dictionary of Non-Existent Model Railroad Terms, 3rd ed., 2019.

Selective Impression

Selective Impression: The art of constructing a model building using only a hastily taken photograph as source material.

Usage: Since Madwood's client provided just a few photos taken from the backseat of a moving car as reference material, selective impression was the only tool left for cobbling together a reasonable model.

Source: The term was first coined by George Franke in Modeling Sycamore Feeds that appeared in the October 1982 issue of Railroad Model Craftsman. Mr. Franke notes I was behind schedule when I took the pictures so I neglected to take any measurements. He also elaborates that the prototype wasn't served by rail so he left off a small shed to accommodate boxcars, put the office on the first floor, and shortened the storage building among other adjustments that suited his model railroad's needs. Selective impression is not for creating exact replicas of buildings, but is for capturing what caught your attention, and making appropriate adjustments to fit your layout's world. Selective impression is not to be confused with either selective compression or selective staging.

from The Dictionary of Non-Existent Model Railroad Terms, 2nd ed., 1999.