Mosslanda: Night Shift - Less is more…

Balancing a layout is especially important in the smaller scales - and smaller layouts. This goes beyond detail and caricature, scenic contrast and detail levels must also be considered for our choices here help guide the viewer and interpret the scene, to tell their own stories in its compact form…

It had always been my intention to add light inside the warehouse, so that it poured out of the doorway onto the layout - a layer of contrast, the inside out, light and dark and accentuating the contrast.

I’ve been putting off this step as it required a soldering iron again, but over the bank holiday my resolve to push this one over the line saw not only the case work painted, but yes, a white (rather than warm white) LED selected and fitted… however, below, I wasn’t sure…

Standing back and taking a look I felt it was too much of a contrast. I’d lost something of the original composition, like its light level seemed to distract from the overall scene. I asked my good friend Chris what he thought…

I like the warehouse light. Instead of “too bright?” the observation I thought was how I liked the way it looks like a different colour casting a different layer of shadow. A new element in the scene without adding something structural.

Chris had noticed my intention with the colour temperature, and added that he felt it added something. I persevered and replaced the 2.2k resistor with a 4k example (lower photo, above). Much better. Bright enough to cast light into the dark, but not overpowering… still able to show its different colour temperature yet now adding to the visual texture rather than overpowering it.

That leaves just one, slightly awkward job left - to create the fiddle stick which also is a sector and needs a sliding uncoupling magnet hiding inside… hopefully something to put together in the coming weeks so my creativity can refocus on the next project. Until then, enjoy the photos… more soon…

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