Paper Interiors

[bparrish]

I got on a lighting and interior kick some weeks ago.  I made up a bunch of brass parts and clear plastic tubing to make street lights look like old gas lamps.  Recall that I model 1897 to 1913.

I then got carried away on interior lighting and detail stuff.  Below are photos of interiors that are small mat board cubes with paper wall details taken from the internet and Photo shopped down to size.  All of the lights are Miniatronics.  There are some counter and stool details that are built up from styrene.  The windows are microscope slide glass.  Nothing looks like glass except glass.

I've got four structures done and another on the way.  I'll take photos of the inner structure as I go along with that one.  These are very forgiving as they are really little and when  placed on your railroad the viewer cannot get real close to see that much is two dimensional. 


Here is Ritter Drugs.  This structure came off of my Oakley Street diorama when I built it for the Prototype Photo category for the NMRA achievement stuff.  Put Oakley in the home page search on this forum and it will come up.




Next is the bank.  This is done in two layers as the back wall is the vault and there is a closer paper print of the teller windows with cutouts so the vault behind can be seen.  There are two ceiling lights so that the vault print is more visible.  The camera is being held lower than the viewer would see so the light is not so noticeable when standing.

[vinceg]

Spectacular, Bob. Very creative.

Do you use actual Photoshop or something else/free....e.g., maybe GIMP or something like that?

[jerryrbeach]

Bob,


Absolutely beautiful!  Any tips on where/how to find the photos of period interiors in color?  I usually find photos that are either period in black and white; or photos that are not era appropriate when in color.  I especially like the teller in "formal" garb.

[engine909]

Great scenes very well done.

[bparrish]

Jerry...

I use Mozilla Firefox for my browser.  I put in things like "Old grocery store photo"  and when anything comes up I select images.  There might be hundreds to choose from.  Many are in color of some restored old room in a museum.  I don't know and really don't care.  I select what might be a possibility and then click "view image".  This gets the photo as large as I can easily pull down.  Then "control-C" to copy and then paste it into a new file in Photoshop.

I can work it from there with color balance and contrast.  Not all photos are taken straight on but Photoshop has a skew function that allows me to pull the top and bottom edges of what I am interested in  to parallel. This takes out the vanishing point perspective.  Then there is a free form function that allows me to size it to the various panels of the core structure.

These are monumentally forgiving as you can't see enough to realize they are flat or that one or another shape is a bit distorted.  Much of modeling is illusions.

Thanx for looking in.
Bob

[jerryrbeach]

Bob,


Thanks for your quick response.  I use Mozilla also but not with your degree of success.  Seems like I need to do a better job when entering my search terms.

[bparrish]

Here are two more buildings.

I put an interior in a Design Prez corner store front to be a saloon and pool hall.  I used green clerestory plastic from Labelle to make the lights over the tables.  The brass rod coming down from the ceiling are the conductors and the bulb wires were cut off VERY short.

The camera pulls up more light and washes out more of what can be seen than in person.









Then here is Jimmy's cast plaster Fulaz drug store that I converted to a cafe in Boise.   The chairs and tables outside are wound from .015" brass wire.  It took a lot of people to populate this.

There is a guy carrying a block of ice to the store from a Wiseman casting C cab truck.

[GPdemayo]

Amazingly creative Bob.....really adds to the structure and bringing things to life.....

[bparrish]

So here is how I do these...

First it a photo of the building ready for an interior.  I typically put in drapes or shades make of single ply Kleenex and then cover the second floor windows with card stock paper that I blast with flat black rattle can paint.


Here is the appearance from the outside.



Here is the core insert with the various paper backgrounds.  The floor looks like some sort of hard wood.  The top cover is to turn down verticle light leaks and support for the lighting.



Here is a better shot of the interior before clutter and stuff



The counter has been glued in and some flour and cracker barrels.  A bulk scale is to the right and the cash register is carved out of a block of resin plastic and painted gold.

[bparrish]

Here is the counter during construction.
It is .010" styrene and held together with Tennax glue.  It takes about 15 to 20 minutes to knock one of these out.    A view from the underside shows how simple they are to construct but the finished and painted counter is hard to tell what it is when installed.





Again when installed.

[S&S RR]

Bob


The interiors look fantastic. And thank you for the tips and tutorial on creating them- I'm taking notes.  Great thread.

[Janbouli]

Bob


The interiors look fantastic. And thank you for the tips and tutorial on creating them- I'm taking notes.  Great thread.

Ditto , thanks for sharing.

[jbvb]

Nice work, Bob.  A couple of related points:  the free GIMP tool does pretty much everything Photoshop does, but with a different user interface.  And the commercial paper interiors from Roomettes come with 12 VDC LED lighting that's compatible with Woodland Scenics 'Just Plug'. I found them awfully bright on 12 VDC but haven't yet tried either additional resistance or a Just Plug dimming hub.

[JimF]

Bob, great looking interiors, and thanks for showing how simple and easy it can be.

I'm working my way through GIMP, as I just can't see buying Photoshop, or any of the other pricey software, just for hobby use.

James, the WS Just Plug hub will let you dim down individual lights nicely.

I'm also going to check out the Dwarvin system more, as well https://www.dwarvin.com/

Jim

[bparrish]

I got the interior for the grocery done and tried to put it out on the railroad.

Fumble ! ! ! ! !

Its bulbs were not a light but a dark.  Turns out I had only 16v. bulbs left.

So I am stuck until an order comes from Miniatronics.

I'll clean up the various holes that are punched through the ceiling  before final assembly.