I did some work to tone down the colours on the upper level. Basically, all I did was apply a number of thin, loose washes of grays, browns and blacks to the hangar doors and the landing pad. It’s not perfect, but I think it’s improved. I think I’ll move on to installing the windows and internal view blockers.
I was reorganizing my old vinyl albums on the weekend after they had to be shifted to make-way for a cable installer. I’d forgotten that this one had a railroad track photo on the cover (and I'm still wondering if it's model railroad track). It’s a little weird for a cover shot, but back then – believe it or not - I didn’t buy it for that reason. I was a big Jim Croce fan and a completist one to boot. I had to have every album he made, so when I stumbled across this one, I had to buy it. It’s a collaboration with his wife Ingrid. I’m certainly no music critic, but I’d rank it as ok. It’s enjoyable, but a little too folky for my tastes. Then again, I haven’t played it in probably 25 years, so I should give it another try.
Ok, while I’m on the subject of albums, this one, Moon Safari by Air, has even less to do with trains, but it does have this great idea for a VW van / spaceship conversion on the back cover of the CD. When I was building the E.L. Moore van conversion last year, it was vying in my mind with building this disco- hippy spaceship. Obviously, Mr. Moore’s conversion carried the day, but now that I’m considering a rebuild, maybe this time around I’ll try both.
Over the past week or so I've been working finishing the roof-top patio and the surrounding parking area.
Grille's will be located on a corner lot as were many old fashioned gas stations.
The parking lot base was cut from a piece of 0.080 inch styrene to fit the lot. It was painted with loose washes of flat black and gray paints. A fine-tipped art marker was used to line the parking spaces. The old British American Petroleum sign in the parking lot is an item from Penitentiary Products.
The roof-top patio lawns were cut from Woodland Scenics Forest Green grass mat and glued in place with thick super-glue. The Woodland Scenic grass mats are very different from the Busch ones used at Art Park. They have a much finer surface, and the backing is a plastic / vinyl type of material instead of a papery one. A set of steps was made from strips of 0.080 inch styrene to join the two patios. The railing along the back wall is a Grandt Line product. I suspect that if this was a real building a railing would be needed along the front as well, but I thought it would detract from the look.
That's about it for major construction. All that remains is to add a number of details to help bring it to life.I’ve been posting a lot recently. And not by accident. I wanted to see if I could do 30 posts in 30 days (or less), and chose January to do it in because it’s the dead of winter and I had the time. Also, 30 seemed like a good number because over the past 2 years I’ve done about 30 posts per year. Some preparation was required for this test. I had a backlog of photos I had taken now-and-then throughout the fall and early winter so that I had some material to think about. I’m also working on three building projects (Grille’s, The Barrel & Marble Works, and Mr. Scott’s), as well as doing some work on the layout, so that stuff promised to provide some other sources of post-able material. Ideas for posts also just naturally arose during January, so I made use of those too.
Now that I’ve finished my experiment I’m going back to my usual haphazard posting although I’ve learned a lot about what it takes to be a serious blogger. Writing and photographing and preparing posts cuts into model building time, so I’ll go back to more building and less posting.
I've added the street corner where the Cedar Heights Station will be located. It's just on the northern end of Art Park. The corner facing the street will get a bus stop and shelter so that it's easy to transfer from bus to train.