Andrew's Resurrected 1/72 MiniArt Town House

Mini Me

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Might find what you want here Rick. It’s on your side of the pond as well….
Wow Tim.......just checked it out. They're pretty reasonable at about $15.00 ea. but the shipping and handling puts it over $25.00.....it's back to my scribe and ruler until I can find a more reasonable option. Thanks for looking out for me Sir!:thumb2:
 

Mini Me

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Hi Andrew, good looking interior job on an otherwise plain Jane kit.....takes it to the top floor! I have done interior detailing in the past on HO scale buildings but never thought about complete interior walls........I will defo be trying this out on my next building project. Rick H.
 

adt70hk

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As promised 'wriggly tin' device with two bits of Coke tin as examples! Can't remember the manufacturer but I'm fairly sure it came from Hobbycraft, the card-making department!
Steve
View attachment 451200View attachment 451201
Steve,

Thanks for that much appreciated!!

Hobbycraft don't do them any more....it took me a while to work out what they were called....

Paper crimpers in case anyone else is wondering!

Thanks again.

Andrew
 

adt70hk

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Hi Andrew, good looking interior job on an otherwise plain Jane kit.....takes it to the top floor! I have done interior detailing in the past on HO scale buildings but never thought about complete interior walls........I will defo be trying this out on my next building project. Rick H.

Thanks Rick. Glad you like it.

It really is an odd kit, nicely detailed in many ways and yet stupendously lacking in others and I just couldn't leave it! The plastic sheet over the whole thing seemed the quickest and simplest way. I don't need much for our purposes.... So it works pretty well.

Thanks as always for stopping by.

ATB.

Andrew
 

adt70hk

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Hi all

Firstly thanks for all the good wishes for myself and my wife after we contracted the dreaded C word. Fortunately, symptom wise we both got off fairly lightly with nothing worse than nasty colds. I'm still feeling tired if I try and do anything vaguely physical - even climbing the stairs takes my breath away.

Anyway, enough waffle. As some you may have seen, I had Junior move my modelling kit up into his bedroom - our quarantine room. My daughter is revising hard for her GCSEs so we're trying to keep her safe.

Junior's bedroom is where I normally work from home and so it already had a desk at the right height. The layout works well too - plenty of floor space for my stuff, plus it's sat right next to the window and so has good light and ventilation for the spray booth. The only downside is that it's long wall is south facing and the window faces west. So even at this time of year, as I suspected, it gets too hot for spraying by the afternoon if the sun is out.

So the following has taken place the past couple of days:

- I managed to fil the worst of the gaps with filler. It's the best I can do given the way the kit went together but it's better than nothing.

- Main base coat of Life Color's Rust Base Shadow UA702, as it was the best 'brick' match I had - and was Junior's choice too. I have heard some people complain of struggling to spray LIfe Color and I was certainly worried given how very pigment heavy it is being for rust effects. It actually worked out pretty well and although I had quite a bit of dry tip, it was fairly manageable. It does though definitely feel slightly 'furry' compared to how a coat of Vallejo goes down.

- Having sprayed the whole thing brick colour I then had to mask off around the windows, ledges and door frames ahead of painting. Although the windows all have inserts, adding the inside wall means the front and back of the window frames don't meet any more. I therefore didn't want to risk leaving a thin line of red brick visible, plus the full ledge needed painting anyway.

- To help me try to recreate the slightly warn white look of the window surrounds I sprayed over the red brick with Vallejo's Medium Sea Grey 71.307, before applying thin coats of Vallejo's Insignia White 71.279, until I felt I had a reasonable match for the window frames.


Whilst this may seem a lot of work something only Junior and I will see in person for our little battles, I look at is an an opportunity to practice skills on something that cost very little, ahead of working on more expensive kits.

Fortunately the modelling gods were smiling on me today, whilst there is a little bit of overspray on the side aspect corners - easy to fix in any case, all the bleed occurred in places that don't matter, with one exception. Even where the paint lifted in one small spot, it occurred in a place that will be hidden by the window ledge surround!!! Thanks be to the modelling Gods!! ;) :smiling5:

All comments and constructive criticism welcome as usual.

All the best

Andrew

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My temporary set up





Earlier in the build, the horrible join lines on the end (first picture) were covered with styrene strips (you can just seem them in the second shot). Rather than try to hide them and make them look a bit....meh!, I decided to make them a 'feature' to try to tie in with the windows on the front, which I think has worked ok.







All masked up prior to the big reveal.....fingers crossed!!!





Other than the bit of overspray and problems caused by the way the ridiculously complicated walls went together on one corner, I'm quite pleased with it. The two window frames are just dry fitted and I'll tone the new paint look down with a wash.

I'd welcome your thoughts on what you think of the ends and making a 'feature' of them for future reference I did though miss the marks I made when I originally thought about marking out bricks....doh! Will have to fix that!

I also have to do the round windows at the top by brush. Too hard to mask easily.....












 

adt70hk

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Good morning all

So I showed my daughter my efforts as per the above shots and her reaction was that it looked very flat and lacked depth.... :tired:...and then added are you going to individually paint some of the bricks to add colour variation? Not the reaction I was looking for! ;)

Of course she is right about the lack of depth and I already knew that as it is just a base coat, plus art really is her favourite subject and she is very good too......but it wasn't the reaction I was after ;) .

In terms of adding depth with some pre-shade, I did seriously think about doing it but given all the different layers and angles, I figured natural light would do the job - you can certainly see the effect above from where the model was in front of the window but only time will decide if that was the right call.

I added the window surrounds and 'decorative' stonework above the windows.....turns out that looking at the box art theses were intended to be the normal colour and I had inadvertently assumed the white coloured plastic was the colour they were supposed to be - never mind though, as they say it's my model! :smiling5:

I was also able to cover up the overspray ok in the end and am going to have a go at doing individual bricks a different colour - they are though only 1mm x 4mm.... :anguished:

I've also marked the rough 'flagstone' flooring. I did this my drawing a pencil grid of 5mm squares - equivalent to just over 1 ft square. However, this was only a guide and so some were smaller and some larger and some odd shapes.....maybe in hindsight they could have been a bit bigger; never mind. It all about trying out new techniques and I simply used a small round needle file to do it. Next up is to redo the primer base coat.

ACW as usual.

ATB

Andrew

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Base coat finished and window frames in













Floor - just after I started and and the finished job
I'm actually thinking of adding short lengths of square styrene rod in each corner as the floor does not quite hold the house on square.




 

Jim R

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Hi Andrew
Well I hope you and yours are on the mend. Sounds as if you have got away lightly.
Building is looking good. Not easy - a lot of issues to sort so all credit to you. Daughter is probably right in that some of the bricks could be picked out in different tones - do you have a few hours to spare and a steady hand. Also the mortar maybe. That flagged floor is excellent.
Jim
 
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Tim Marlow

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Hi mate, looking good, but I think your daughter is right in that it is a little “flat” in colour. One of the options would be to give the mortar courses colour. Mortar is usually lighter than the bricks so the walls “read” wrongly when you look at them. Easily done by pin washing the grooves with mortar colour. An alternative to painting individual bricks is dry brushing with various colours. Best way to do that is diagonally across the courses. Vertical or horizontal dry brushing gets into the mortar courses…another option for individual bricks is coloured pencils. They are easier to control than a paintbrush…
 

Jim R

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That coloured pencil idea of Tim's sounds good. Not heard of that before.
 

adt70hk

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Hi Andrew
Well I hope you and yours are on the mend. Sounds as if you have got away lightly.
Building is looking good. Not easy - a lot of issues to sort so all credit to you. Daughter is probably right in that some of the bricks could be picked out in different tones - do you have a few hours to spare and a steady hand. Also the mortar maybe. That flagged floor is excellent.
Jim
Hi mate, looking good, but I think your daughter is right in that it is a little “flat” in colour. One of the options would be to give the mortar courses colour. Mortar is usually lighter than the bricks so the walls “read” wrongly when you look at them. Easily done by pin washing the grooves with mortar colour. An alternative to painting individual bricks is dry brushing with various colours. Best way to do that is diagonally across the courses. Vertical or horizontal dry brushing gets into the mortar courses…another option for individual bricks is coloured pencils. They are easier to control than a paintbrush…

Jim, Tim

Thanks as always for you support, comments and advice - it is very much appreciated.

I knew it was 'flat' when I showed my daughter and was hoping for a little more daughterly support but hey ho!

Will try picking some bricks out either with a brush or a pencil (neat idea Tim hadn't even occurred to me). And maybe even the drybrush technique too.

I will though definitely be adding mortar, that was already on the to do list.


Jim - I feeling largely ok but still testing positive and today is day nine... :crying: :crying:

Looking the business Andrew....

Rick, thanks as always for dropping in and glad you like it but still a way to go!


All the best.

Andrew
 

adt70hk

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Hi all

So as you may have seen on 'What's on the bench' the other day, I've been working on the making the brickwork look less flat by picking out individual bricks in a different colour - or six to be precise!

Unfortunately, just as I put it to one side I managed to knock it off the table.......and a side wall popped off.... :crying: :crying: :crying: :crying: :crying: :tired: :tired: :tired: :tired: ....fortunately is was a nice clean break down the corner joins!!

I need to do a bit of touching up on the white and may need to touch it up a bit where the walls came apart but all in all I'm pretty pleased with it.

ACW as usual.....it looks a bit less red in real life!

Once the glue has dried on the side walls I'm going to put it to one side for the time being but more about that later.

ATB

Andrew

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My weapons of choice.......






The finished brickwork...the indoor shots give a better idea of the colour but it's more muted than in real life.....and outdoor it's a bit redder than reality....so imagine a mix somewhere in between!





















Reattaching the wall......:crying::crying:

 
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adt70hk

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Brick colour looks excellent to me Andrew……the mortar will tie it in even more….
I agree with Tim..... excellent rendition!

Thanks chaps. Much appreciated. Trying to find the sweet spot of randomness and the colour balance had me worried. Interestingly I still wasn't sure until I add the Model Air Light Rust. I was worried it was to light but it worked really well and somehow 'lifted it'!

Once the glue has dried on the wall I might park it for a while for something else.

Thanks again.

Andrew
 

Jim R

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Hi Andrew
Glad the struggle with gravity didn't cause damage that couldn't be fixed.
Definitely worth the effort to paint the bricks with a variety of shades.
Jim
 

adt70hk

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Hi Andrew
Glad the struggle with gravity didn't cause damage that couldn't be fixed.
Definitely worth the effort to paint the bricks with a variety of shades.
Jim

Thanks Jim. There's probably a few places where is a bit overdone but as Jakko and Tim have said previously, as overall wash and doing the mortar between the bricks will hopefully tie it all in and the it down a bit!

Thanks for stopping by.

Andrew
 
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