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Comments
I see the PM now also.
James, your emphasis on following Brett's & Karls' sequence for type of paint is excellent. Thank you.
I plucked an eyebrow and as per Karl's recommendation painted the wrenches and axe head black. I need to look at some additional build logs for color ideas for the objects in the drawer and on the bench top. Do any particular photos pop into any of your minds? Dang, those things are tiny!
I also began window work.
I'm not happy with the window shown below and need to tweak it. The yellow frame on the uppermost part of the window is from the painted outer part remaining stuck to the double sided tape that was holding it down.
To the extent that any of you have time, I would very much appreciate feedback.
Respectfully,
John
for reference/colours that is the same bench I just used for the castings tutorial.
The windows are coming along nicely, the chipping/deteriorated look is coming out well.
Karl.A
Karl, I thought the casting looked familiar, but left town before carrying out my research threat! Home again now and indeed I shall go back to you tutorial - thank you! I bought some excellent brushes but continue to think I'll have to pluck eye lashes to apply the paint on some of those details. Brett, how do you do it ???
Thank you both for looking in and commenting. I arrived home last night, did expense reporting for reimbursement today, hope to bicycle (http://optibike.com/r11/) to Starbucks in the morning then back to work in the shipyard . . . .
Respectfully,
John
I take pictures with a macro lens and look at them on a 27" colour calibrated screen - it really shows every tiny mistake. Don't rely only on that as other factors (i.e. Light intensity and colour) determine the overall effect and how everything blends together. My magnifier (LED), modelling and painting booth and layout area all have the same light temperature. This way the finishing is the same everywhere.
I learned this when airbrushing a boxcar with boxcar red paint that made it look yellow in the spray booth. I took a picture and it was orange so i stripped it and repainted it to later find out it was ok. It was just the light incandescent light bulb in the paint booth producing more orange light. So i chose a standard light colour ~4500k (close to the LED light temperature) and replaced all the light fixtures/bulbs to match. No matter where i am working on the model the colours are consistent
Since your modelling area is exposed to natural light that changes during the day/night and your work light looks to be florescent (?) you will see random colours at different times and your photograph's light balance could be off. Something to consider.
Keep plugging along.
/marty
I went back and looked at Karl's tutorial and also at some of your threads, In the end, the objects in the drawers are so tiny that for the most part I couldn't identify some objects and just used random colors.
What do you do with a barrel that has many nano size unidentifiable objects sticking out of it?
I think these pictures are going to look muddy, but they are the best I could do at the moment, trying with both cameras that are on hand.
Since every space, object and area wasn't specifically painted, I tried dabbing with chalks & A afterwards.
Comments and suggestions on how to fix this mess would be appreciated! I don't have a sense of color so I don't know what I am trying to achieve . . .
Respectfully,
John
I use a nikon d100 (and old one I had lying around) the lens is also an old 35-135 mm with macro mode. I can focus down to 4 inches. I use a flash with shutter speed of 1/60 second with f/stop 11 and ISO 320. This gives reasonable depth of field and more is in focus. The key is to get the subject as bright as possible while keeping good exposure. I hope this helps.
/marty
First comment I say is this is HO scale. No viewer will be as close as your pictures. DSC589 and 590 seem to be nice work. DSC588, for example, I think needs a little more detail painting on the barrels. Keep going.
In as much as the resin preps are out of sequence with the manual, today I finished and put them aside after adding as much additional detail as I could create with various subdued colors. I consider them sufficiently complete as to leave until I actually need them. The metal castings I am going to wait on until they are needed. Karl, thank you for getting me motivated on doing them with your excellent tutorial.
I got back into the manual and did the three windows. Placing the small top window in an open position is a bit of a challenge. The dirty window glass color is whacko, probably because of my fluorescent. Please try to disregard it.
Moving forward I'll get back in step with the manual.
Respectfully,
John
Propping open the windows is always fun, like you, I generally use a spare piece of wood, my trouble is that I always give them a little wiggle too early, just to see if its "dry enough yet"....
Karl.A
I am trying to bear in Mind Kevin's comment about making each tiny piece a project unto itself and that will lend depth to the project.
I have dealt with my camera issue and if I can get myself properly spun up on this new toy I can hopefully photograph in true color.
Respectfully,
John
as for tiny stuff in boxes, barrels, drums, drawers the best thing to do is use your own judgement pertaining to it's final visibility. As I stated several times in the detail thread generally its best not to sweat it too much.
If you follow the instructions in the thread you will see that I say to colour anything 'obvious' in the first pass of colour. This would pertain to bottles, small boxes or anything else that stands out easily on its own. Generally what is left after this is mostly generic cogs, wheels, machine parts, etc.
As described these can most easily be treated with two or three different colours, primarily black and burnt umber, to pick out the separate items, then blend it all together with some dry brushing and chalk.
Keep in mind that when Kevin really got into his detail painting he had moved to O scale and was only working in that scale, not HO.
However, as an example, the "Loco and Service Shops" kit shows how most techniques when adapted can be transferred down to HO with incredible results, far beyond anything seen in HO before.
Obviously there are still some limitations and differences between HO and O, size being the main one.
Looking at beautifully finished and highly detailed O scale castings is a great inspiration to us when we are working in HO, but, as Harry once said, "a mans gotta know his limitations"......
Karl.A
John
you're welcome John.
You are doing a great job on the build. I have been enjoying watching your build. Keep it up and enjoy. Brett's kits are absolutely fantastic to build.
Jim
Respectfully,
John
Respectfully,
John
Isn't this kit fun.
I found the windows the most challenging and there are so many. Getting the windows held open with the small stick are the hardest. I re-did them many times and they broke off later in the build when handling the walls. Deep breath...
Marty
I've spent time trying to improve my photography by purchasing better equipment. I am unsure how long it will take to achieve acceptable results though . . . .
I made curtains with draw strings, the strings not being very visible. Overall, as you are all aware, the pictures show flaws that are practically unobservable in reality. That is my excuse for what follows.
Let me bore in to the shade. I should be able to get sharper photography.
The door is open about six inches but that is not seen in this straight on photo. It was a challenge developing a technique for removing the protective paper on the back of the hinges - even more so for the door plate and knob. Must have been designed by a masochist.
Finally, assembly, howsoever minimal. I laid one of my window blinds in the foreground but depth of field with this fancy camera blurred it up a bit. As soon as I finish this writeup I am going back into the books to see how to broaden depth of field and obtain faster shutter speed,
The starkness of this imagery should give you all lots of room to critique my most obscure details. Thats what I want though.
The hinges seem to need a bit of toning down. What else, dear friends?
I see your are getting there. Some more photo tips,
- the closer the camera to the subject the tougher it is getting a good depth of field. Means you have to make the F-stop higher which means you need more light to get good exposure. This can be done by slowing down the shutter (no lower than 1/focal length of the lens. I.e. If you have a 50mm lens, then the minimum shutter speed would be 1/50 second; unless you use a tripod.) or, you can increase the ISO setting, which does increase the amount of noise making the image look blurry.
- making good exposure with a white background is harder than you think. Not to get too complicated, but white paper confuses the auto-white balance and tends to make white look grey. Thats why most of my images are on the green cutting matt. To make the white background thingy work, you need to increase the exposure in post-processing and enhance the shadows and darken the black areas.
- with the image comes out of the camera, it is usually modestly sharpened. And when you re-size the image fir the web it can change the apparent sharpness. What I do is slightly over-sharpen the image and when the image is re-sized the web image looks better. Re-sizing is done using a resampling algorithm that can mess with a good sharp image. For example, if your image is 4000 pixels across and you re-size to a 600 pixel web image it will typically re-sample ~6.6 pixels so you tend to lose data doing that, read as lose focus. This gets worst with the larger images. That is why I the older camera with only 6MP.
These are all co-dependent, so finding the right mix of shutter speed, F-Stop, ISO, lens and focal length is a matter of practice. You need to find out the mix that works for you and stick with it until it doesn't work.
Marty
Generally I set the camera to 5mp pictures, put everything on auto and just press the button.
Six inches away from the subject is a good distance I find for close ups.
Looking good, nice progress. The last picture I'm guessing is more or less how it would look if I was standing at your modeling desk and looking down at it.
In that perspective it is looking superb, the wood tones are nicely done with some good variation and the underlying wood colour showing through on the peeled windows ties in with the wall colour nicely. I really like the last shot.
The camera and a macro zoom is a great modeling aide, but, it can quickly turn into a cross to bear.
If something doesn't look perfect blown up to 10 times it's actual size that doesn't mean it needs fixing.
Major flaws and refinement are what the camera is great for showing up, and I don't see any of those in your pictures.
Karl.A
Your build is coming along very nicely, I agree with Karl, jooming into small items really brings out the flaws which are usually not visible at normal viewing distances. Looking forward to seeing all the walls come together ( and remember... don't glue the dormers on until the walls are put together).
Paul
Karl, thank you also for the photography advice. Razor saw, actually no, initially a large wire brush and later after coloring the wood a brass brush not much larger than a tooth brush. The camera is brutal - in person it looks quite different. For the longest time I was looking at everyone else's pictures and thinking I had no distress showing - now my boards look a hundred years old . . . The earlier tip about an AI wash closing the grain was pivotal. So obvious, but of course I hadn't thought about it.
I am taking the pictures as ten to twelve meg files, then after cropping I resize the files for forum posting. I want to get good pictures, so learning is fun.
Paul, thank goodness you are back. I need you out in front. My rate of build shows little risk of catching up to you though . . . how do you like my steel blocks? The second dozen was just fabricated and I hope to have them here to paint tomorrow.
How exciting to have three showings of this kit here in near time.
Respectfully,
John