Two cities layout.

[deemery]

I've used yellow post-it notes for shades.  Turns out they fade authentically. :-)


dave

[Opa George]

Roger, shades in the Green Building look great. You achieved an authentic random look using that strip method.
--George

[Random]

Thanks.  I used individual shades for the red express building but the strips were easier to work with on the green building. 


Next I turned my attention to the roof.  Since the building is not square I inverted it on a sheet of card and marked around the inside of the walls with a pencil. I then cut outside the pencil lines, did a little trimming and fitting, and braced the underside. 




While that dried I filled the gap in the corner of the cornice with squadron putty.




I decided this building needs a elevator so I used an index card to mock up the size.  I wanted the mechanical penthouse to enclose the space above the elevator and the roof access stairs.  Access to the elevator machinery is from within the stairwell. 




The size represents a single elevator shaft as anything larger would overpower the structure.




I used some scrap sections of the kit to make the penthouse.  I marked the required walls with pencil.




Then I cut out the sections on the bandsaw. 




Next I rigged a temporary jig and beveled the wall ends at a 45 degree angle.  "Rigged" is a key word as the bevels did not come out accurately on each side.  I suspect I'll need to make a better beveling jig for future projects.




The errors in the bevels resulted in gaps but these will be easily hidden with clutter.

[deemery]

Are you sure those castings were flat to begin with?  If there's some warp in them, that would show up at the corners.


dave

[Random]

They were flat.  My jig was very improvised and slipped.  At least the foremost corner has a good match.


I failed to take pictures during the steps but here is the final look of the penthouse.  Undocumented steps were as follows:

Basic brick color using my pallet of artist acrylics, varying the reds and including some black in spots to created some variety. 

Once the acrylics had dried I washed over the brick wall with thinned and wetted watercolor. 

The door was painted with the same green as the main building.

I tried to represent a rolled lead roof.  (That's my story anyway.)  I glued two strips of tiny strip wood to represent the lead interlocking folds, and then attached a sheet of heavy duty foil, flat side up.  I carefully worked the foil down over and around the strips of wood.

The foil is painted with gray acrylics and dusted with a bit of gray pastel chalk.




Continuing with the painting, I finished the cornice by painting it a darker color.  I then went back and touch up the green highlights.




I also tackled the cornice for the red express building.  Several coats of green were required and the lighter detail required two coats. 




While the paint was drying on the cornices, I spent some time working on the diner.  I cut and attached the stripwood skirting around the raised support base and then painted it red.  I also painted the walls of the diner and shed in yellow and the windows in the same red as the skirting.  Squadron putty was used to fill holes in the roof and small gaps where the two ends were mated. 




Temporarily placed together, the diner is looking good.  It still needs window glazing and a wash of ink to bring out the board detail.  I also need to paint and assemble details for the interior of the shed. 




Cheers!

[Random]

I left out one other portion of the green building build.  While I was working on positioning view blocks the lobby kept bothering me.  Those big windows on the ground floor allow too much view inside.  So I decided to install a simple floor.   I cut a piece of heavy card to fit and reinforced it with stripwood.  This raised the floor to match the base of the doors.




I laminated a piece of pastel paper to the top of the card to serve as flooring. 




I cut view blocks from black cardstock and positioned them to break the interior into 3 zones.  This prevents viewing through the building from one side to another.  I placed a sheet of waxed paper on the floor, positioned the view blocks, and flowed a bead of canopy glue down the joint where they touched.  Once that was dry I removed the waxed paper.




Now the ground floor interior has a bit more of a finished look.




The scene is coming together nicely.



Cheers!

[Janbouli]

Nicely is not the word Roger, awesome, great , fantastic , have your pic.

[Random]

Thank you for the kind words.   

Its not all Mars InSight landings.  When something is just not working, call an abort.  For instance, this attempted tar and gravel roof.





I think my white glue is aged out and didn't thin well.  I'm not certain, but it turned into a gloppy mess.  Solution: peal off the paper layer and reset.  I think I'll just go back to using a sheet of sandpaper for this one.

Cheers   

[Random]

The old sandpaper method is much neater.




Some ink wash and pastels later and it looks like a dinghy roof.




Movin' right along (as the bear says).




Cheers.

[GPdemayo]

Great looking built-up roof Roger.....well done. 

[Random]

Its been too long since my last update again but with the holidays and having to move my work room I have not had much time to model.  I did, however, work on the sign for the green building.

I wanted to use precut letters for this sign but I was unable to find them in the size and font I wanted so I had to make my own.  I chose a font that was as close as possible to the desired letters, printed out the sign, and glued it to some medium weight card stock.




I cut out each individual letter with a razor blade and xacto knife.




The "R" in this font had a straight lower leg so to get the curved leg I used a "B" and then cut down at the bottom.




I built the support frame from strip wood using a printout of the sign as a guide.




To keep the letters from delaminating I placed them face down on some painters tape along with the frame and primed them with spray automotive primer.




I was careful to get all of the edges of the letters.




I then mounted the letters to the frame using the printout as a guide for spacing.




Next I primed the face of the letters to seal them fully.




So far its looking good.

Cheers!

[Random]

I almost forgot.  I also painted and installed downspouts on the green building to cover the seams between the wall sections.  Those blue weights came in handy again to hold them in place while the glue set.




The scuppers at the top of each downspout were white metal castings that came with the original building kits.


Cheers.

[Lynnb]

Nice work on the sign and downspouts.

[vinceg]

Wow - the clean cut on those letters is amazing. Nice!

[Random]

Thanks.   I cut the outside portions  of the letters with the single sided razor blade by placing it and rocking it back and forth while pressing down to get as straight a cut as possible.  I then went back and removed the outer curves by shaving off a bit at a time in straight cuts.  The inside areas were done with short vertical cuts with the xacto knife.   The real trick was sanding the edges afterwards.  I used fine grit nail files and some small rat tail files for the inside portion.  I had to be very carful as the card could delaminate if I was too aggressive. 

Cheers