Hey all I thought I would show you my latest building I have scratched. The stone one I have not decided if it will be a pub or a barber shop, the middle one is a cafe, and the one on the far right is a hotel. The brick work on the hotel is not finished one the right side and I need to finish the balcony still. The cafe is finished, but i still need to build the windows and door. Let me know what you think of it.
Enjoy,
Matrix
http://community.webshots.com/user/diorama101

That is some damn fine nice buildings you have made there Matrix. What did you make them out of? I want to make some soon for my next dio.

Regards

HastyP

Woah...very nice! Be sure to update this thread with some details on how you made and painted it.

THanks for the kind words guys. The buildings are made out of cork board that you can find at most craft and hobbie shops. I found out about using cork from a guy at Digital Dioramas. It is very easy to use and has great results. As far as painting goes I did a base coat of flat black to the whole building and then for the stone I just dry brushed some grey on it to my liking. The Middle building, or the cafe, had a black base coat and then was painted with antique white and then weathered. The hotel, far right, has a base coat of black then was painted with clay tile paint. I still need to weather the brick and pick out individual bricks to very the color a little.

Adam, great work.
I still dont believe in buying buildings from companies ...... when there is so much fun in making items like this. I know its not finished, but when you see kits like these that come from Verlinden etc, they are quite similar. Its when all the windows, roofs etc are added that it brings the walls to life. I spent a lot of time making building out of polystyrene foam, but have now started with plaster as well.
I have an idea Im working on, something like this, but what i want to add is a more 3-D effect. Little things like steps to doors, 1 building front slighly further back than the rest and building of different heights.
Thats the only thing I could suggest....... is to try and bring in the 3-D effect........ thats what really gives life to a street scene like this, in my opinion. Otherwise, I love the buildings and with the usual details they will look superb!
The best example I have ever seen of this is a dio called "road to Caen" by neill hewlett
link to pictures
In Military modelling magazine, Vol:33 No:4 there is description of the build up of this. The amazing thing it is in 1/76.
Good luck with the rest of the build, and hopefully we will see more as your work progresses!

I was searching for the link to the pictures, and saw that you have made the buildings from cork board. I though it looked like scribed plaster!
How is the cork board to work with? Is it easy to scribe?

Plastic,
Actualy the cork is not scribed. To get the stone and brick look I had to make every stone/brick individualy. Theis is time consuming but gives the best effect. If you want to scribe it you would need to cover the cork board with spackel and then scribe it.

GREAT - CONGRATS
ROBERTO

Magnificent! Looks like the real thing especially the brick work.......impressive.
I will try using your method in my next project.

Matrix

After you have made the bricks. Are you glueing them to the sheet they are resting on, or just to each other and the base sheet is just keeping them together till the glue drys?

Hasty

HastyP,
I actually use two sided tape to hold the bricks to the base sheet. I then coat the bricks with deluted white glue to help hold them to each other.

It looks very good Matrix. Keep on like this!!!
Ciao

Quick question Matrix...approximately how long did it take you to put this together?

At this point I have around 40 hours in this building. It takes alot of time to lay individual bricks, but the end look is well worth it to me. The larger the brick/stone the faster it goes. The building on the far left is made out of "cut stone" which is about two bricks high and one brick long. This type of building goes alot faster. The stone building took me around a 1/2 an hour to finish. The middle building is stucco so that took around 20 minutes to finish. hte brick work is the time killer, but like I said the final look is well worth the time spent.

I'm also using the cork technique that I picked up at Digital Dioramas. You can see some of my progress here:

http://groups.msn.com/armorama/modlrmikesstuff.msnw

Adam,

Great work. The only thing I can criticize is the bricks that looks too red (to me), but you said that the model wasn't finished... Good luck with the rest of the building. I would like to see the finished result.

Looks fantastic, guys! I'm inspired to tackle some scratch buildings of my own.. .

Stephen

Matrix
Very impressive! This is an area I haven't gotten into. Have you considered doing an article? I think there would be a lot of interest.

:-) Great Job, Matrix, it looks very realistic. I may want to try that
someday. Keep up the good work.

Updated some of my pics. Building facade mostly done. Roof, doors, and windows yet to come. Rear will be a ruined tavern... hopefully. I've also added a small cobblestone and pavement street section for another vehicle I'm working on.

View them here:
ModlrMike's Gallery

You've got quite an impressive building front going on there! I assume this is part of a larger diorama?
Keep up the great work.

Actually, it's going to be the only building in the scene. Call it a test building where I work on my scratchbuilding skills. I intend to have some scratchbuilt furniture etc when seen from the rear.