The Obligatory 2024 New Years Review

Well, well, well... no updates since May. Though in my defence, I've not stopped working on projects, builds, or stuff for mags; balancing as I was the Three Childs (teenagers now), my increasingly time-consuming day job, some Real Life Drama, and... trying to pack up our house (and a separate workshop) for a move. A somewhat protracted move; we looked at the house in July, and finally moved in at the end of November.

So anyway, every other model-making blog on the planet does a post like this, looking back at a year of work, so I thought I'd jump on that bandwagon too. Partly to remind myself what I've been up to, and partly in case anyone still bothers to look at this blog and see that I have in fact been working.

Starting the year, a shot published in BRM from an old project, the industrial-themed Cakebox layout.

I continued producing work for Hornby, for the Collectors Club.

Things not off to a good start; the garden railway suffered its final catastrophe, when the Spring storms bought down a fence, and a load of plants onto the line. With the need to remove it and replace it for some scaffolding work, I got fed up of the whole damned thing and ripped it up for scrap. Thus ended several years of trying to be a garden-railway modeller.

At least, temporarily, as it turned out.

Gerry Anderson Day saw an attempt to do some pics using some old kits from Captain Scarlet; the original plan for shooting outdoors scuppered by poor weather...

...which also scuppered the shoot for The Collector, which resulted in a hastily-built set on the kitchen table, in the Kitchen-Workshop-Laundry in our little end-of-terrace.

Big props to the designers at Hornby for saving that project on the page, though I'd gone to a lot of trouble with the mocked-up fake website pages, posters, and catalogues, to make up for the poor photoshoot.

So by about a third of the way into the year; the garden railway had been destroyed and scrapped, I'd not been able to undertake any outdoor shoots at home, I was struggling to produce anything in our little house (thus causing a considerable amount of stress within the home and family), and I was close to stopping the whole model-making thing anyway, as I was finding it tricky balancing it with the Day Job.

Funny how a change of scenery can lift the spirits. OK so the weather was often still poor, but there were the odd sunny days which allowed a bit of location shooting, including some non-railway content.

Finally a chance to do the Captain Scarlet shoot I hadn't managed (involving standing in the sea early one morning). Also to indicate how busy a year it's been creatively, if for non-miniature related reasons, this was following two hours of myself and Elder Child batting inflatables around for a photoshoot done for a gallery open call; thank goodness Kitsch is still in fashion, and some of my older projects have come back around in popularity again.

More for Hornby; still struggling with the low-and-no budget shoots, built in a cramped kitchen, one based on Pensnett in the West Midlands. Quite a fitting one, given it was the nearest railway to where I grew up, and this was shortly after my immediate family had moved away to Wales, thus pretty well severing my connection to the West Mids.

An old project which kept on giving; the 0 gauge tinplate, re-shot for British Railway Modelling, who published it at the end of the Summer.

There was another project for Hornby over the summer, closer to home; Damems, on the Keighley and Worth Valley Railway. Well, home for the time being, as at this point the need for a bigger house had finally become so pressing that we'd jumped, and were in the process of moving.

There'd been an interesting development with the garden railway modelling; with the G-gauge line having died a death, me and Amy picked up a regular joint gig with Garden Rail Magazine documenting the build of a new 32mm line. This has seen the production of monthly articles; a good trick considering we didn't have a garden railway at this point.

Mindyou, it did mean a shoot or two up in the mountains in Wales.

Speaking of location shoots up in Wales; some more of the Warhammer stuff as a pallette-cleanser from the otherwise endless railways.

Oh look, there's the Damems one in print...

...and the Garden Railway pieces starting. Of course, a major problem at this point was trying like hell to bank some articles, as the house move was on the horizon (and thanks to some delays, stayed on the horizon for several months longer than intended). What this meant was trying to do a load of model-making back-to-back, at the same time as the Day Job went bonkers again, and whilst trying to pack up the house. Something about burning the candle at both ends comes to mind.

The last Hornby project of the year, but one I was really happy with. Probably too big a project, consisting as it did of three dioramas, effectively a whole model railway layout built on next to no budget and very little time.

So, where am I now? Well, for a start, I'm no longer in Keighley, for the first time in over a decade. I have a workshop (well at the moment its a basement full of boxes) so once the move is properly finished then I'll have loads of space to do work in. There is a plan to restart the comic (he threatens), new art style and sets, because effectively it's my Mindfulness task and calming mechanism. I've still got regular contributions planned for Hornby, we have room for a new garden railway for all these articles we're writing for Garden Rail. During the move I've uncovered box after box of part-built kits and projects, abandoned along the way.

So; busy busy. In a better place (both metaphorically, and literally) than this time last year, at least as far as the model-making is concerned. Raising three teenagers continues to be a bit of a slowly-unfolding car crash, but then that's teenagers for you. Hopefully the model-making will compensate for the other dramas, so I'm hoping to get this all going again on here soon.

In the meantime, happy new year, and bring on 2025.

 

Llangollen Show 2024 (Garden Railway Saturday)

Hey, remember that dying hobby I'm a practioner of? Well, little evidence of that at Llangollen a couple of weeks ago, where we'd trekked down from The North for an exhibition...

The garden model railway show at Llangollen is held in the impressive surroundings of the Eisteddfod Centre just outside of the town centre, an impressive venue.  There are enough visitors to warrant parking on the field behind.

First sight on walking through the door; a very, very impressive Playmobil layout.

There's just an insane amount of things going on here.

Further in were the more traditional, scenic layouts...

...these being in 32mm gauge, but there was a good mix, and lots of trade too.

Speaking of which, I coveted this miniature Class 08.  If I had a garden big enough for a proper sit-on miniature railway, I'd love this...

I'd settle for this though, a gorgeous model of "Welsh Pony".

After lunch and a couple of laps, we headed into Llangollen itself, going the scenic route through the station.

The classic view over towards the station, as we strolled back, ice creams in hand.

Passenger service arriving.  Not many pictures of it, as it was a wedding train, and there were many, many people hanging around the station, sweating in their suits and toppers.

Back inside for another lap of the show, and a bit of shopping.

Speaking of which, I did end up spending quite a bit, so here's the traditional modellers 'look at all the pretty stuff I bought' shot.  I enjoy shows like this, as you tend to find the 'couple and their laser-cutter' cottage industries that have been killed-off in the smaller scales.  After a decade modelling in the garden in G, a possible house move (and various crises like building work) have seen the garden line scrapped, and the stock sold.  A change to a smaller 32mm line is on the cards, so this show was a good chance to acquire some bits for a fresh start in a new scale, quite exciting.  A steam loco from Boot Lane Works, a few wagons, some Mamod track, ans some tools and accessories.  

Thoughts?  I really like this show.  The venue is huge but well-lit, it doesn't feel cramped, decent refreshments, and a great mix of layouts to provide inspiration and traders to buy stuff off.  It was busy too, with a good mix of visitors of all ages (it's probably because garden railways encompass toys at one end and insanely-expensive miniature engineering at the other, a nicely broad spectrum).  So much for the dying hobby.  Anyway, more on the demise of my G-gauge line, and rebirth with an SM32 line, in due course (he threatens)...

 

Going Large; a fictional large-scale range (Hornby: The Collector)

Another post, another mad-capped project for The Collector.

A few years ago, Hornby imported the Lionel-made "Hogwarts Express" gauge 2 train sets.  I reviewed a set for Garden Rail, re-gauged it (with difficulty and a lot of swearing), and speculated that Hornby could have used it to kick-start an imported range of large-scale toy sets.  For anyone who's bothered, they can wade back through the blog archive, assuming anyone reads this ridiculousness.

Having written the first part of the Collector article, on the history of the large-scale efforts and the Hornby/Lionel set, I'd always planned a part 2, with the development of this range that might have happened, and it what it could have looked like.

These sets don't look to have been massively popular; you can get them clearance pretty cheap, or indeed often stupidly cheap second-hand after being used once or twice.  I've been buying them up when I spot them (I have a grand plan for a model railway layout using this stuff as a basis... what can I say, a gauge with next to no commercial support?  I love a challenge).

I set myself some ground rules for this project.  The main one was: no rebuilds, just repaints of existing items (assuming Hornby would have wanted to keep the budgets tight in reality).

Re-painting.

It was easiest to start with the coaches; I knew I wasn't going to be able to recreate the lining, so thought I'd try masking it off.  Tamiya masking tape in a mix of 2mm or 3mm width used mainly.

Generally it worked quite nicely.

Alongside the Hogwarts set, the only other UK-outline train in the Lionel 'Ready to Play' range is Thomas.  Whilst Hornby would be unlikely to buy the licence for Thomas the Tank Engine again, I thought some repaints would give the line a British tank loco and coach.  I bought a few sets back when the pound was better against the dollar, pre-war.

Lionel don't tend to make these easy to re-gauge, but at least you can dismantle the models reasonably easily.  Later RTP items tend to be glued together, Lionel not being keen on modellers monkeying about with their products.

Here I'd break my 'no rebuild' rule, though to be fair Hornby/Lionel would also need to re-tool a smokebox door to replace the face on the loco.

All the rest of the sets are US-outline, which meant some re-painting into British colour schemes would be the only option.  I got this set off eBay, from a seller in Brighton of all places; this set isn't generally available here in the UK. 

Dismantling for spraying.

The models with a coat of primer; they all got at least one coat of grey.  For real stress, I'd suggest also trying to spray-paint models during a wet, windy winter, with a deadline fast approaching.

Cleaning the over-spray (caused by, yes, spraying during a breeze) will be a fun job for Future Ben.

With the spraying done, it was time for some detail painting; simple touches, using Citadel acrylics.

All the colour schemes were simple, and I deliberately used a restricted palette of colours over my range, trying to reflect what Hornby/Lionel might have done in reality.

Loco with decals; the plan was to make stickers, but in the end I printed on gloss and glued the custom-designed elements on.  Incidentally, the repaint of the 0-6-0 was based on the slightly smaller toy, itself a re-brand of a Thomas toy sold commercially about 20 years ago.

Photographing the models

I was planning on photographing the models on a custom-built set , but quickly realised there'd be no time to build it, and finish the rolling stock models, so dug out an existing photoplank from the loft.

Originally designed for G scale track to be laid on top, unballasted, I cut a channel in the grass, sprayed on some textured spray paint for ballast, and glued-down some of the RTP gauge 2 track, which had a spray of brown paint to lift it from being plain black.

I thought I'd like to shoot some of the pics outside, but the sheer number of models meant I'd need to work at home, which meant using the garden wall.  Lighting was a bit poor.

It kind of worked, but I quickly realised I'd need to do a studio shoot.

Back indoors, with a borrowed studio light, my blue sky backdrops, and some white acrylic sheet.

The plan was to use this as the basis for some of the photo-shoppery...

...like this, a faked website pic in Hornby's current style.

Also this sort of thing, to create...

...fake catalogue pages, in the style Hornby used a few years ago.

Then it was out with the hanging basket liner, with some Britains figures and plastic trees for set dressing.

Oh we do like to be beside the seaside...

When I was drawing up the plans for this project, we were on holiday at Minehead, where the station is on the promenade.

So, there's always been a thread of 'trains to the seaside' running through this project.  I had an idea of doing a fake boxed train set, so the 'Holiday Express' seemed like a bright, colourful sort of a thing to do, and an antidote to the grim winter I was working in.

Oh look, it's the Holyhead Breakwater set again!  It had been stored up in the loft, and the winter hadn't been kind to it.  The sand had absorbed damp at some point, and the 00 gauge rails rusted, so I thought I'd be best off lifting them altogether.

The beach set was very improvised on the day; the rippled water is textured, clear sheet bought for another project, and laid on our exuberant, tropical-themed tablecloth with some real sand.  The waves came from the cotton stuffing from some incopads (the same ones used to do the snow for that Polar Express comic at Christmas; hooray for upcycling).

More Britains figures- in another example of upcycling, they're the ones modified for the seaside miniature railway 'cakebox' build from about three or four years ago.

I drew up some simple beach elements, coloured with alcohol markers, to use with the box art.

Like so.

And there's the box art designed and produced (a net, I seem to recall these are called, harking back to my GCSE Graphic Design days).  I managed to get it printed on A1 paper...

...cut out...

...and mounted on one of the upcycled boxes, hiding Daniel Radcliffe's earnestly staring face.

The Junior Starter Set

This project needed another location shoot; one of the sets was made to look like a child-friendly train set, but now The Childs are all super-cool teenagers with messy bedrooms bereft of teddybears and such, I was struggling to find a suitable location.  Luckily, I had time to fit in a quick shoot at Scouts one night, in the reading corner of the library.

Quickly improvised props; the ball was leftover from the games we did with the younger section that night (thankfully they hadn't managed to burst this one), the teddybear had been used that very evening for "We're Going on a Bear Hunt", the plastic toy animals were in the boot of the car (chairty bag; Tween Child is Too Cool For Toys Now, Gah Get Rid Of Them, etc.)  And of course, the legend which is my somewhat-battered cuddly husky, appearing in various photography, art, and sculpture projects since Uni, and still just about intact. 

A final location shoot

A very much last-minute attempt to get some more outdoor pics, using the garden railway which badly needs a pass from the weedkiller train.  Trouble was, the lighting was poor, and the weather was on the turn, so this didn't turn out too well in the end.

And that was that; out of time for any more shoots.

It worked though, and whilst I probably went a bit over the top doing it, I enjoyed creating the whole fake brand, with all the posters, website pics, catalogues, and other stuff, attempting to keep a cohesive look and design to it all.

Not sure if the editor was expecting it all to come out looking like this, or if he was expecting something a little more 'normal' but there we go (and yep, the Benjy Model Railway Shared Universe in effect here; all the thumbnails in the above shot are other articles I've done for the Collector).

And here it all is, in the Spring issue.

So what next?  Well, if the possible house move we're looking into pays off, the eventual plan is a micro layout (of sorts; gauge 2 means even a micro layout is pretty much a major layout).  In the meantime these will be used as the main focus of a number of other projects to come over the next year or so, just to make the most of them.  And then maybe something a bit more normal for the next piece for Hornby...