Bar Mills Queen City Coal

Started by vinceg, May 19, 2020, 09:07:03 PM

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vinceg

Thank you, Curt. It has been a fun ride.
Vince

Protolancing the Illinois Central Chicago District from Chicago to Kankakee

jerryrbeach

Vince,


Over 10 years ago I attended a clinic by the late Brian Nolan on how to compose a diorama for the maximum impact.  He talked about the artist rule of thirds and many other ways to draw the viewer's eye into the diorama scene.  I think about 75% of the clinic went over my head but a few things stuck and I have found what I did learn of value. 


With that in mind, I looked at your last two photos.  The stucco structure is almost perfectly placed to draw the viewer's eye into the scene toward the coal storage building.  Both the wall that aligns with the expansion joints and its transition from two stories to one almost forms a force field to draw the viewer into the scene.  One small nit, I would align the dock side of the building along an expansion joint by sliding it forward slightly.  It just makes more sense to me that the joint would be next to the foundation of the building.


I feel the placement of the green building could be improved.  Not only does its shape and position not draw the viewer into the scene, it almost forbids them to enter.  I would rotate the building clockwise forty five degrees or so to align the longer wall with the expansion joints.  I believe it would then invite the viewer into the scene as well as display the end of the structure with its second story deck.  Again, the transition from two stories to one helps draw the viewer's eye toward the coal storage building. 


I think that the coal storage bunker should dominate the scene purely from a size standpoint.  Yet, to me it seems overpowered by the stucco building.  This may be due to perspective, but I think the the depth of the coal bunker harms its ability to dominate the scene.  Also maybe the perspective of the photo is deceiving, but to me it looks like once the chutes are added to the bunkers they will be lower than the sides of the dump box on the coal truck.  I would suggest using a piece of 1/2" foam under the base of the storage building.  I think that would give the building a more massive look as well as remove any potential issue with the chute height.  You could scribe the foam to look like a poured wall with a slab under the bunker complete with expansion joints.


Is there a truck scale or scale house included in this kit?  Because a coal yard kinda needs one.


I am wondering if you model a specific era, and if so, what year or years?  Seems to me I saw some SD40-2's in a pic you posted some time ago...inquiring minds and all that.
Jerry

vinceg

Jerry, WOW - awesome input! (Am I too old to say "awesome?"...probably) I was so interested in what you said I ran back downstairs and moved things around. I didn't have any 1/2" foam lying around but I did have a little slab of 3/4" plywood handy so I used that. If I understood your instructions, here's the result:



Not a finished thought, yet, but there are so many things I like better about this:

- coal chutes were too low as you said - I never even thought about that.
- elevates the rear of the dio - more interest and hides less of the bunker
- lets me see more of the yard office (green building). I do love the stairs and deck
- the stucco building and the yard office now "point" to the bunker. Again, as you said

Now you've made me think about the whole area differently. Ideas running around in my head:

- Move the stone building further back to further frame the tipple
- Move the tipple to the left a little bit - same reason
- With the stone building back, the entrance to the business needs to be in the front (you can see I moved the bridge accordingly)
- Maybe that shouldn't be a bridge at all - maybe Hwy 50 is at that level and there is no retaining wall - just the grade that goes down to the double track mainline below.
- I now have room up front for a weigh scale of some sort - guess I could copy the idea from the FSM Duffy's kit
- Need a place for the freestanding tank (fuel tank?) that doesn't ruin the other effects

I couldn't easily move the stucco building for expansion line alignment - it's glued down so that I could easily build the gantry crane that you see on the left.

To answer your other question regarding era, I'm at about 1990. But, there are many, many egregious anachronisms on the layout (hence the "protolancing" in my signature. I wanted 1990 for the Death Star IC logo. But, by 1990, the Monee Cut was single-tracked and mine is double-tracked. Also, I have zillions of 40 ft. box cars. I like those not only because they were available from the IC historical society but also because I can have more cars for the same length of train. Hoping there will be additional operations capability there. And, of course, by 1990 it is much less likely that you would have small industries such as are represented in craftsman kit dioramas that are actually being served by a Class 1 railroad. I hope to help that out a bit by doing some kit bashing and kit combination later on in the saga. Interestingly, as my tastes continue to develop/mature, more of those red and yellow boxes will be used for urban scenes and placed on streets rather than spurs. We'll see.

Great vision, Jerry. Thanks a bunch. I think you just made a huge difference in where I would have headed with this.

Just one question back to you -- when can you come over and design scenes for the rest of my railroad?
Vince

Protolancing the Illinois Central Chicago District from Chicago to Kankakee

PaulS

Vince wonderful build and a great scene developing !!


Jerry, I am too old to say it but I'll second the AWESOME on your input.  Like Vince, I very much appreciate your insight in explaining things here.  I have been thinking and planning lately about scene development, the elements of art and principles of design.  You have summed up a lot of these ideas concisely with a practical example using Vince's beautiful modeling.   Sure wish I had been there to take in Brian's presentation.


Thanks again to both of you for the information and inspiration !!
--Paul
Modeling the Atlantic & White Mtn Railway

jerryrbeach

Vince,


I'm glad you made some changes to your scene.  It looks much more appealing to me now.  I would suggest a couple more things.  First, use some cardboard (chipboard) or dark construction paper to represent where the road crosses the front of the scene.  IMO that will help you visualize where to locate the fence and entry gate to the yard.  Knowing where the gate goes will help locate the scale.  The scale and scale house (should you build one) will impact the sight lines to the tipple.  That might lead to repositioning the green office building.  Of course, if you are able to locate the scale by the office...  I don't remember the tank you still need to construct, it too will come into play with the scene composition.  You seem to have a lot of space still available.  Maybe you could add some material bins, simple poured concrete walls and use them to store sand or crushed stone.  The stucco building has plenty of room to store bagged cement giving them something to take up the summer slack.  I'm just "spitballing" here, if I hit on something you like, run with it.  If not, just ignore my ramblings.  FWIW, I'm flattered that you think I have design skills, I just try to look at a scene as if it were a postcard.  Am I drawn into the scene, or do I just want to move on.
Jerry

jerryrbeach

Quote from: PaulS on July 06, 2020, 06:53:25 AM
Vince wonderful build and a great scene developing !!


Jerry, I am too old to say it but I'll second the AWESOME on your input.  Like Vince, I very much appreciate your insight in explaining things here.  I have been thinking and planning lately about scene development, the elements of art and principles of design.  You have summed up a lot of these ideas concisely with a practical example using Vince's beautiful modeling.   Sure wish I had been there to take in Brian's presentation.


Thanks again to both of you for the information and inspiration !!
--Paul


Paul,


Thank you.  I wish I was able to take that clinic a second or even a third time.  Brian went into great detail, right down to the placement of castings, what worked and why it worked.  I've managed to remember and apply some of his basic concepts. 
Jerry

postalkarl

Hey Vince:

WOW1111 looks just beautiful. Can't wait to see some scenery and other details around the buildings.

Karl

vinceg

Thank you Karl. Just about to post the final bunker pics. Working the scene is coming up next.
Vince

Protolancing the Illinois Central Chicago District from Chicago to Kankakee

vinceg

Coal chutes and the stairway are now in. One last set of pics here to show the (more or less) final state of the coal bunker. I do still have to put in the doorway lamps on all buildings, and a little weathering and clean up here and there, but for the most part I'm ready to start working on the actual scenery on the diorama.

Here's the front of the bunker/tipple:



Note that I decided to leave the extra long rafter tails for now. I'll take a look with fresh eyes a little later once the scene starts to come together more to see what I think then.

Here's the north side of the building:



Taking pictures is such a great way to find problems. For example, it wasn't until just now when I'm posting this picture that I can see the north wall seems to have a couple of finger prints on it. Will need to take care of those. I also see some residual marks from where the railings were cut away from the laser sheet. Unsightly here but didn't catch my attention when I was looking at the model live.

Here's the back - not much changed from the last picture other than a little more weathering.



And the south side. Again, largely the same except for some more weathering:



And, finally a reshoot of the building trio with placement a la Jerry Beach:



That's about it for the buildings. I still have the freestanding tank to put in but I'll show that a little later once the rest of the diorama starts to take shape.

Overall, this has been a great kit. Other than having to watch out for a few errors in the instructions -- especially with regards to bracing -- it goes together easily. For example, the coal tipple went together in just a few days around the extended July 4 weekend. So, my hat's off to Art, Jack, Jim, and anyone else in the Bar Mills gang for putting together a kit that was fun to build.

I am going to go off and try to work out the scenery, now. First order of business is to get the overall plan in place. Maybe I can do a few things first like the area behind the stucco building. And for the tipple, I was planning to have a fake spur back there for hoppers to dump their coal. Actually, it would be a real spur but inaccessible to my track plan. Would be scenery only with a hopper or two back there for effect. Will think a little more about that. Other than that, I'll be rethinking the whole context of the diorama as Jerry suggested earlier. Have to find the right balance between analysis paralysis and regretting that I moved too quickly.

Will be back as soon as I can. I'll keep the scenery work for this dio in this thread. When it comes time to integrate it into the layout, I'll go back to the Monee rebuild thread that I started a while ago.

Cheers.

Vince

Protolancing the Illinois Central Chicago District from Chicago to Kankakee

Opa George

Excellent work on all, Vince.  I am particularly fond of your weathering on the bunker.  Can't wait to see some scenery develop.
Nice work all around.
--Opa George

Oldguy

Very, very nice.  It will be a great scene once planted.
Bob Dye
Livin large on a pond

tom.boyd.125

Vince,
Great modeling...well done...excellent coloring...another set of neat industrial buildings for your layout...
Tommy
Tom Boyd in NE Minnesota
tommytrains22@yahoo.com

vinceg

Thanx George, Bob, and Tom. Sorry - it's been too long since I've been updating this thread. I've actually been poking along at a few things, just not taking pictures and keeping the thread up to date.

Time to fix that now. I think it's time to stop working on it. I can think of dozens of more things to do but at some point, I have to reckon with the reality that there's a whole railroad to work on...can't keep tweaking this diorama forever. (Well, I could, but....)

More shortly.
Vince

Protolancing the Illinois Central Chicago District from Chicago to Kankakee

vinceg

OK - first item. Earlier on this page, Jerry Beach recommended that the coal dealership needed a scale. Nothing is included in the kit so I scratchbuilt one out of some scrap wood from the kit. To do that, I copied the scale used by FSM in the Duffy's Coal Yard. It's essentially a slab consisting of steel slats. One of the wood sheets had enough spare wood on it. I cut out a rectangle and scribed in the slats with the back of an X-Acto knife with a #11 blade. Here's a pic:



I also framed that piece with 1/16" square wood and painted to represent steel.

More shortly.
Vince

Protolancing the Illinois Central Chicago District from Chicago to Kankakee

vinceg

Also earlier on this page, you can see a pic of the coal bunker raised by 3/4" on a piece of scrap plywood. For the diorama, I used a piece of 3/4" foam (the same foam as I used for the diorama base). I then spackled the cut edges to give it a smoother finish (using that pink stuff that I like so much). Finally, to give it a little more detail, I scribed in vertical lines and also used L-shaped styrene along the top to represent a ridge. Finally, Painted with some old Polly S Concrete that I still have and hit it with some various chalks. Here's a pic:



More shortly.
Vince

Protolancing the Illinois Central Chicago District from Chicago to Kankakee

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