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hello all, after far too many hours spent reading all the excellent advice and information on this site i've got going with my wooden track and literally up to my elbows in contact adhesive, grouting and paint mixing, and loving every minute of building my new sandstone cliffs.i got going again with the old scalextric track over the summer as a neighbour gave me a load of old curves, the track grew, bigger than the toy room and into the big space i've got near my workshop, during august that track was decorated and filled with props (with help from my 6 year old, who built a lego snack area for the pits!) and we have since staged a successful tournament last saturday with 27 drivers of all ages (not bad for a village of 250 people), since then i started on track number 2 in wood, have done the levels, routing and nearly finished the cliffs, but awaiting the copper and still tons of modelling to do.....but how happy am i doing it?, you get to regress to being a 4 year old mucking about with dirt and paint and glue, then when its done you turn in to an 8 year old and speed around a small spanish village at 1/32nd scale....GREAT.

anyway, just wanted to sign in and will try and post some pics soon of the 2 tracks,(when i've figured out how!)

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a ha! i thinks it works, heres the first track

 

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and the footbridge going over to the light house (laser cut in steel)

 

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and the result of this weeks fun and games, the copper tape is in the post, paint in the tin and ideas in the head!

 

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cheers guys, no plan i'm afraid, i just did it adhoc to fit on the base that i has already(a massive fibreglass plant holder!) everything else just happened on its own, looking at it now, after the detail on number 2, it looks crude, i'll have to go back to it, after the wooden one, paint the plastic, fill the gaps with paste etc, the folks that came to the race loved the detailing, and even though, theoretically they are impractical for race and marshalling purposes, they added loads to the ambience
Visit My Website[/url

not sure how this thing works, but somewhere in this url is the photobucket album of the tracks, which i'll keep adding to

 

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started painting my 40 figures, pretty tricky but slowly getting the hang of this thing, not pro standard for sure but a lot better than the hash i made of it with gloss humbrol paint when i was 10!, the mechanics have mucky faces because i dont know how to do it properly and my white acryllic dried up about 15 years ago (its my old university set of paints!) but then mechanics should by right be dirty no?

and this is a big pile of fake grass etc made in 10 minutes while waiting for the food, and idea from mr tile guy (cheers ), basically mixing emulsion tint, with lots of water and mixing all the residue from the routing (still on my workshop floor!) and other crap (picked out the welding wire and steel!) i reckon that 10 minutes saved me 35 euros

 

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well spotted mr rooster, shame they dont do scale versions, shes my big baby. and mr brad, i can now die happy as you sir are indeed the boss, thanks for the inspiration (your 3d use of every space on your track ..specifically the truck tunnel...inspired me to put a cave under the village for the pit crew, and tunnels out to the main road), more stuff soon, just been trying building trees...think i've come up with a new species !!

 

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star player mr rooster!, that now tops the large list of things to get, and do!!!!...from pendleslot by all accounts

cheers for that, made my day

 

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i thought up till now that a track could do without figures..but i have to say they give it an extra dimension, a kind of story board i suppose

i'm thinking about trying for a 'wet look ' track....not raining, but maybe it rained the day before....any ideas anyone...gloss or satin laquer on the sandstone as the cliffs seep, and a bit of gloss in the ruts of the muddy zones, could be risky though..once its on, theres no going back!

 

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just back from the art shop...complete with white acryllic, and red,(i've got to paint the ladies soon, they cant be so grubby!,) also matt varnish spray and some gloss for the wet idea, should be welding chairs this afternoon, but i can feel the last bit of the cliff face beckoning so i can start painting the main road (yippee). might have to experiment again with the trees which were just coming out too mutant (like half evergreen and half deciduous)

also found a thrown out dried flower arrangement in barcelona, with loads of potential bushes and some cool wire domes on.....motorcycle ball of death anyone!

 

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ok heres the satin 'wet look' effect in the mud ruts, i've tried some seapage around the terraces on the cliffs and it looks ok, but must be careful not to over do it or it'll turn into euro disney! (if you know what i mean)

heres my guys in the cave under neath what will be the village, once they've fixed the cars they go out via one of 2 tunnels onto the motorway...not sure if this arrangement would satisfy health and safety!

heres the muddy turn off from the main road up to the track (must finish that routed connection!)

and the over view, still tons to do..
steel bridge
old mans garage under the bridge,
olive grove on the terracing
the pit cave and tunnels
the village!
the road works on the main road
all barriers, etc

yikes

 

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cheers ember, i'm gonna hold off on any more rain until near the end just in case!, at the moment the ideas for the details are changing daily, which brings me to my problemo

most tracks i see on here are stylised to a certain place in a certain time, and the purists pick the correct detailing for that area in that period, 60's italy, mid west america etc..this is great and correct....BUT.....the problem i've got is the following.

i live in spain and so mostly copy the scenery from around here, much of which is very beautiful of course..olive and almond groves, cherry trees, etc etc.
however i studied architecture in manchester and now work in steel, so i'm very influenced by the industrial revolution railway architecture there (big rivets, massive girders etc.)

the problem is, that the bridge detailing that i want for the track is based on 'iron bridge' in england (picture to follow) and straight opposite on the track will be the olive grove terraces typical to here.! basically that type of bridge wouldnt exist in rural spain, it'd be all rustic stone .

so...what do you all reckon, we're creating a fiction here after all, can i just mash up all my best bits in one track and hope it fits together or do i have to smooth down the styles into something more coherant??????

add to this problem the fact that i'm rubbish at making trees and they all look like they're from some kind of japanese garden, and you can see what type of pickle i'm in!

 

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ok heres the famous bridge, can you imagine it in the spanish countryside????

 

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another thing... found this tree for the centre of the village square, obviously a very old tree and could provide some nice corners, the bricks around kind of represent the buildings around the plaza, the big one will be a church/hermitage.

questions, ..is the tree too big?
its gonna be in the way for de slots, but to my mind thats less important than a cool ambience in this setting
its also dead (obviously), how do i make it look greener without making it look mutant!??

HELP!

 

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thanks for the great feedback folks!, its a bit frustrating working in a vacuum sometimes, stuff you go with at the time sometimes later turns out to be a big mistake!, ok the tree stays..good!.i like it and it draws the eye to the top of the hill when looking at the track as a whole, also forms the basis of the plaza and also we got married under a similar tree on the top of a mountain next to a hamlet!..so that all ties in.
this afternoon i found ancient plans of a bridge designed by a disciple of telford, who happened to live just down the road from here, those plans just happened to be in dxf format on my computer, ready for laser cutting...strange...now how did that get there!!!

time to spend a few dollars at woodlands scenics methinks, in the meantime i might start working on the hermitage (a small version of our village church) while the forge is preparing the bridge bits!!

thanks again gang

 

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blimey now the pressures on isn't it, now we're all up to date on how the original was built and the genius that telford was, i've got to step in and provide a masterpiece!! well, luckily after changing the proportions of the bridge to fit the actual double span that i've got (about 1m 20cm), we loose the perfect semi circles that is on the original, which also breaks somehow from the englishness of the thing. it is now much more eliptical and reminds somehow of bridges in italy to my mind.(probably a good thing).
construction will be far easier than the original, as all the tricky stuff will be done by laser. however, this time i'm going to layer the pieces more to give more of a 3d effect because the footbridge for track one (see earlier in the thread) looks too flat!, also mix wood for the flooring of the pedestrian walkway, and maybe some sort of tubular handrail. then it has to be fixed to the track and the stone supports added around the steel structure. should be easy!, i dont think i'll paint it, just rub down the rougher edges with sandpaper, i'll rust on its own where it needs to.

meanwhile i've come back from a great weekend seeing the correfoc in barcelona (look it up on you tube) with a bag of miniature trees picked from a park there, fotos later, and i'll try and post a pdf of the bridge plans

see you soon sig

 

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ok so this is proving to be just like floristry (my mums a florist), you cant just plant trees, willy nilly!, they seem to look better in group types. pines with pines, deciduous with deciduous.(like in real life of course), also i'm very conscious of the overall view, as my track is small (1and a half chip board sheets) it is easiliy appreciated in 1 'eyeful', meaning that 'eyeful' has to look good in on go!, the heights need to build up to a 'crescendo' on the top of the hill and lead down in height on the way down again.
now the 'architectural trees ' are inthe shrubery can be placed as they lok a bit odd, growing straight out of grass and rock!
the 'trees ' that i found are all from types of grasses and shrubs from around here , there was even a seed pod that looks like a palm tree!. the colours are very autumnal which i like (luckily) but with a bit of airbrush i'm sure they can be made more vibrant. personally i'm enjoying the muted colours in the track, another concept in landscape design is keeping the colour palet to a minimum.basically the only bright colours on the track will be the cars and the village girls

regarding the bridge, i'm trying to figure out how to portray rivets, i could precut holes in the steel and then weld small tacks through the holes so the heads look like rivets, but flippin 'eck what a rave!, any ideas??

 

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hi ember...drought and bush fire, down your end.. we've had some fires far too close to home here too. my pines need a spruce up (play on words there!) but need to get a finer air brush first, then i'll give it a go... this hobbies gonna start to get expensive...just been looking at that guy who did the gaudi cobblestones ..fantastic, must give that a go

 

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hi brad and ember, i've got a pistol for varnishing the furniture, but it would be far too powerful i think, however the big compressor may work with a smaller air brush perhaps??, if not there was an offer on for 20 euros with air cannister included, maybe just to get me going??do they block up really often?

brad...rivets!, i've been thinking too..theres a concept they taught me in architecture which i have always liked, its called a negative joint, basically instead of taking a lot of effort joining one material to another, the idea is to leave a gap and leave the joint in shadow. a good example would be trying to butt up wood to a stone wall, instead of cutting the wood around every stone, you just leave a slightly larger gap and leave a recess in shadow, giving a much cleaner and easier joint!.I explain this because what if instead of externally placed rivets with tiny pin heads, they were indented. still giving a shadow and point of detail but in reverse. i could go along with my centre punch and make hundreds of rivet dents, in the steel like a type of etching, it
would be loads easier and quicker and drive me much less insane. then maybe a dark grey wash over the steel to highlight (or rather low light ) the detailing.

anyway the bridge is ordered and should take a couple of weeks to get back to me, then the fun really begins.

in the meantime i've started on the church frontage, in mdf, but it looks aweful, really furry, (i think the mdf is a bit too old) i think i'm gonna give it a coat of plasterboard paste and start again it should give a finer finnish

speak again soon sig

 

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ok all heres the trial i've just done on the other footbridge for the plastic track, ron i tried doing what that web site said(very interesting thankyou) but they use much thinner sheet and copper is much softer than the 2 and 3mm steel i use so on the other side of the steel the centrepunch hole barely makes a mark (the idea being it forms a dimple), so i've gone with the negative detailing and a bit of black wash.
the etched lines are done with those cool new super skinny cutting disks you can get for the grinder these days, and a steady hand!
it was a bit tricky doing it on a ready made bridge, but now i know what to do , all the etching etc can be done before assembly of the big bridge." i love it when a plan comes together"

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