Saturday, July 6, 2013

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.

3 comments:

  1. It looks good Mark. Once it's on the layout with bits of grass and weed round it it'll be perfect.
    Thanks for the plug. It's a long time since I was in Glencoe painting satans.

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  2. And I always considered myself a relatively patient person. I shall have to re-assess that.

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    1. I think it was more a case of perseverance than patience -- I was determined I was going to finish it properly which kept me going. It was also strangely relaxing; I could easily lose an entire morning without noticing.

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