Mosslanda: Denton Road - Coming Together…
Adding colour to Denton Road has been an interesting experience. Choosing colours and shades an important part of capturing the dour and dingy run down city railway weaving its way between buildings…
I’ve been working up to fitting the ‘backscene’ and replacing the A4 paper printed stand in for some time but in recent weeks steady progress has been made on the structures at the back of the layout - so that yesterday, assembly could begin. I wanted to work ‘back to front’ so I needed the structures finished so they could be glued in place to trap the backscene in to the layout. Some black paper has been added inside the offices to stop the sky showing, otherwise nothing else has changes really since last time in these areas…
Not pictured though, the canal has been painted, both the water itself and the stone walls and under the bridge. I’ve also added colour to the old mill - these too are now fixed in place as are the bridge sides and platform, speaking of which, I’ve also painted the platform surfaces so these could be fixed in place. The next stage, yesterday, was track - sleepers and rails, as well as the surfaces which will lie under old ballast.
I find these focused bursts of energy on this project, barely a year old, have allowed rapid progress. More, they’re a mindful release and help me use the headspace to re-focus my modelling. Through the recent burst I’ve fitted two new shelves in the workshop and made some tough decisions on stock retention. More on that this Friday… but for now, enjoy these photos that show the potential of these micro cameo layouts for capturing real character and telling stories. Until next time, more soon…
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When I were lad we didna have colour. That was for posh folks down sarf. We had shades of black. More seriously, see https://youtu.be/ywOS8R8n8yY?si=o4P1BirctRQWe2AY
ReplyDeleteI must take a look at this later...
DeleteLooking good James. Being from "down sarf" it however reminds me of the electrified Great Eastern "Jazz" service I used to ride from Chingford into Liverpool Street in the 1970's across the roof tops of Hackney Downs, London Fields, Ash Grove and Bethnal Green- just the odd splash of colour then
ReplyDeleteBest regards
Alan
There will be a little OHLE at the station on this, just the stub end track so I can park a Class 90 there... I'm excited it works in other contexts in your imagination.
DeleteYes, or one of many London routes built on viaducts that had both worked around what was already there and themselves constrained how land was devloped. There could oftedn be a jarring contrast between an ancient building and a modern office block.
DeleteDenton Rd reminds me of the last leg of the last leg of my commute to work at an outpost of NSY. In Lambeth we had a big computer centre, as well as the home of our supposedly undercover vehicles, and my office in Vauxhall was crammed between rail and river.
As I watch these small layouts come together I'm starting to see the artistic use of color. The color pallet is much more muted than the minds eye thinks it is. When we see things we call them red, blue, or yellow. But if we paint our models the colors we think they should be, they turn out to saturated and toy like. As these photos show, most things are more a tinted gray, brown, or tan.
ReplyDeleteThanks Joe, yes, colour in a layout is always a deliberate choice. The only touches of brightness on this one will be the orange pipes that go under the tracks, and potentially, some vegetation with bright pink/purple flowers… otherwise all muted. Like Lochdubh with its yellow sign and red bins…
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