Now With Added Grime

As I mentioned in the previous post, while I'm happy with how the factory has come together it was way too clean to represent a dark satanic mill, even if it is owned by S.A.Tan and Sons! This photo shows the current build up of grime that I've added to make the model a lot more realistic. I've used three different things to add the necessary muck.

Firstly I used an aerosol can of soot black from Modelmates to really darken down the roof and to take the shine off all the side walls. I've previously used their mud brown weathering spray to good effect and the soot black was equally useful. The only problem with using an aerosol can is that it can be difficult to direct accurately, so I applied it as a mist above the model allowing it to fall like rain. To make this a little more realistic I did this mostly from the position of the chimney so the directionality would be right.

Once I was happy with the soot, I then set about touching up small areas using a dark brown chalk. I've had a box of chalks for as long as I can remember (I have a feeling they might have belonged to my Dad) and I lightly scraped a little of chalk onto a piece of paper, from where I applied it with a paintbrush. I mostly focused on the sides of the roof which were still too clean until I was fairly happy with how it looked, although a few areas were still a little too clean. Fortunately at this point the post arrived. I've recently subscribed to the British Railway Modelling magazine and whilst the magazine hasn't arrived yet, my free gift has. The free gift was a set of Humbrol weathering powders so I attacked the building with some smoke and dark earth to give the final result you can see here, which I think looks a lot more realistic. Now I just have to get on with some landscaping to give it a proper home.

The Devil... Is In The Details

So almost a month after starting to build the dark satanic mill for the layout I've now finished the structure, although there are sill some related tasks to finish.

One of the reasons it took so long was the number of work trips I've had recently as well as the good weather we've been having which has meant lots of gardening instead of modelling. The main reason, however, was that the two side walls that I'd shown you before (here and here) didn't actually end up as part of the final structure. While I was pretty happy with how they had turned out it wasn't until I had completed the two larger walls that I discovered that somehow I'd ended up with the two long walls a few bricks taller than the side walls.

The only solution was to break up the existing sides to re-use the etched brass windows and then to rebuild the two shorter sides. While this definitely added to the build time it wasn't a waste of time as I had learnt quite a lot between building the first wall and having to rebuild it so it went together a lot easier and looks neater.

Of course no factory would be complete without the owners name painted on it somewhere. The kit came with a couple of alternatives but neither really fitted the dark satanic theme I was going for, so I came up with using of having the mill owned and operated by S.A.Tan and Sons. Unfortunately no matter what I tried I couldn't manage to create a realistic looking sign; I was looking for fading paint on the concrete supports. Fortunately ADRIAN is much better at PhotoShop than I am and was more than happy to humour my odd request. He actually produced a number of variations before we settled on the one you can see here. I hope you agree it works really well. Thanks ADRIAN!

Although I'm really happy with how the building looks I think that you will all agree that while it might be a satanic mill it isn't really a dark satanic mill; no where near enough soot. I've had a go at rectifying this, but the result will have to wait for another blog post.

The Other End

While the first side of the factory building I'm currently constructing took a full weekends worth of modelling, the other end, although more complex, came together much quicker. Once you get the hang of how sections are constructed the repetition is actually quite helpful.

I did manage to catch the bottom of the brick work with the modelling knife which was a bit of a shame, but I've covered over the mark with a brown felt-tip pen to hide the worst of the damage. When I bed the model into the surface of the layout (so it doesn't appear to hover), I'll find something to hide the damage behind; probably a clump of weeds or something. Anyway I wouldn't want the factory to look pristine so a little bit of wear and tear is fine. Given that it's supposed to be a dark satanic mill I'll need to add some soot over the whole thing anyway which will hopefully help to hide any small blemishes.

The 39 Steps

Okay, so there are actually 39 parts not 39 steps but, ignoring a rushed bit of ballast experimentation, this represents the sum total of the weekends modelling progress; the outside facing of the simplest of the two smallest walls of, what will become, a dark satanic mill (actually the factory model from scalescenes.com). One simple wall might not seem like a lot to show for a weekend of modelling but I'm fairly happy with it.

This wall will have the chimney attached to it, hence the lack of windows, which is why it was the simplest wall to build and hence the one I started with. Even so each panel is made up of at least 3 layers and the window obviously includes the etched brass window frame from Brassmasters and frosted filthy glass (the glass is actually tracing film which isn't completely transparent). The number of pieces explains why it took a full weekend to finish (modelling wasn't non-stop but there was a fair amount of it).

The time spent constructing the wall is well worth it though, as the multiple layers really add depth to the model. In N gauge adding relief to the brickwork is probably overkill (unless the wall is made out of very large blocks), so the depth imparted by the layers is really important if you don't want to end up with a simple cardboard cube.

Hopefully I'll be able to get on with constructing the other four walls soon, although possibly not this week as I travel to Edinburgh for a project meeting on Wednesday and won't get back until the end of the week. Given the amount of work I have to do to prepare for the meeting I doubt there will be much more modelling before the weekend. Fortunately I have the basis for a number of posts so hopefully I'll blog about something or other railway related later this week.

An Ounce Of Brass

Although I've known for a while now that the main focal point of the layout will be the dark satanic mill I haven't got much further along with constructing it than a simple corrugated card mockup (which you've seen in numerous photos recently). I'd already decided that I was going to use the scalescenes.com factory kit and I've had all the parts printed out for a week or two. The problem was the windows.

The kit includes a sheet of window frames that you are supposed to print onto transparent plastic or tissue paper. The problem is that being such a prominent structure on the layout I thought I needed something a bit more than this. Fortunately Brassmasters do a range of etched brass windows which are specifically designed to fit scalescenes.com kits, so I ordered enough for the factory and the small station in case I added that to the layout. Well my order arrived yesterday -- a very satisfying ounce of etched brass (and I really do mean an ounce as I used the kitchen scales to weigh them).

Most of the windows are in two parts allowing you to model open windows, should you so wish (I won't be), so I now need to assemble, prime and paint all that brass, but at least I'm now one step closer to being able to construct a dark satanic mill.