My company produces hydrocal building kits for the model train market. I'm getting interested in military modeling and am going to do a new line of kits aimed at this market. What would you guys like to see made available? Era, types of structures etc.

I'm thinking about doing mainly 1/35 stuff but am also looking at the 1/48 & 1/72 market if there is enough interest.

To get an idea of what our current line looks like you can see our kits at www.downtowndeco.com None of these kits would really work for military diorama use but it will give you an idea of what kind of product we produce. Any & all feedback is welcome. Cheers!

Randy Pepprock
Downtown Deco

Randy, let me be the first to say "Welcome to Armorama"!!!
Second, I'm a Model Railroader, so, I've seen a lot of your stuff and it's quite good. I'm glad you're turning your sights toward other scales and subjects.

I would have to say, if it's 1/35, it should be a lot of European buildings.
Also, maybe some generic examples of middle east-type structures, maybe stackable and spinable to create a differant building with every spin. Kinda like Walther's new modular buildings.

Again, welcome to the Big- A, you'll probably get a lot of feedback here.

Cuhail

Randy.....fantastic stuff on your site! I'm just sad it's not in 1/35th! As for ideas.....you don't need them, the Pawn shop for example, would sell, as would a lot of your present stuff if converted to 1/35th. I'd love to see a manufacturer produce a line of buildings that could be sold separately,but could be fitted together in different orders to form a section of street.

Vinnie

barns, farms ,dammaged buildings, places to park a tank destroyer. and More bunkers. Thanks for asking

treecat

Hi Randy!
Welcome to Armorama.
Thanks for asking us for suggestions, I'm sure you'll get lots of them. But as long as the price is right, and you guys do ship to this part of the world. Any building in 1/35 would work out fine.

Randy....

how about some wooden bridge...not the stone type but those used in vietnam ?...improvised bridge to cross river and anti-tank ditch....would be a good change...

How about some end of war European ruins and intact buildings in 1/35 scale? I've always wanted to do some 'What If" scenarios involving American and English structures in 1/35 scale. Hope this helps for some ideas.

Semper Fi!

SSgt Mack

Welcome to Armorama - I hope you find your stay here a good one.

I love the fact that you have asked the members what they would like to see. Great step.

Personally, I would like to see kit(s) that combine to make European row houses - Complete. Let us add battle damage

Thanks and welcome.

Hi Randy and welcome.

Great site.

Villages

I'd like to see a range of complete and ruined buildings for French and Dutch villages and villas/sheds/huts for French seaside towns. Houses/shops/farms/barns/cottages etc - all manner of structures at different levels and states of repair.

Towns

Same Detail with 1st and 2nd and even 3rd floor levels. Some with roofs and balconies others with damaged areas. The idea of being able to link buidlings together is great.

Most ruined buildings on the market don't come with any roofing material or ceilings in the rooms which all needs to be scratch built. Doors and windows are usually not included. Open ruins need both internal and external detail and whilst building them might be fun and reasonably successful depending on ones skill level, it takes a lot of time and resources.

There's room for a bigger range of bunkers and kits for the Atlantic Wall as well as wall sections.

Personally I like buildings that are reasonably complete and consist of more than one room, rather than just corner sections, and facings. Internal and external stairs/ hallways etc. Places where one can place figures at different levels and park vehicles from jeeps to tanks with more than one room linked together to give depth and variety.

Wall sections/fences/railings that can be as big or as small as one needs.

What material do you make you buildings from? There certainely is a lack of good quality plastic injection kits although MiniArt have started a range of eastern european kits. Resign is just too expensive.

Sorry to ramble on - sleepless night!!

Good luck

Al

Randy,

Your website and products are very well done.

I would like to see 1/35th scale products including:

1 Railroad accessories- water towers, signal towers etc...

2 Bunkers- Atlantic wall or West Wall

3 Wooden bridges

Thanks,

irish

Hi Randy:

It's always good to see a manufacturer who is willing to go to the customer for ideas.

As an employee of Walthers and one who sees your products up close and personal quite often, I will also echo what others have said. You really put out a quality product. They are full of character and detail which so many buildings currently available lack.

If you transfer this amount of detail and care to the 1/35th market, I'm sure you'll do well.

As for what type of subjects would be good, the skies the limit. I'm sure you'll get alot of different answers on this one. There are a plethora of burned out/ half destroyed European buildings currently on the market. They are usually a safe bet as many modelers seem to like these. The benefit of a destroyed building is that there is less material use on your part than there would be in creating a whole building.

That being said though, I think it would be nice to have more complete structure options for those who want to model a non fighting zone during WWII.

With all the OIF products that have come on the market (and are doing well), you couldn't go wrong to create some middle eastern structures or details.

Since you are already in the model railroad market, you may want to expand by creating some railroad structures in 1/35. I know most of your products are more urban related, but if you did some War era European signal towers or interlocking towers, they would be popular with several of the 1/35 German locomotives that have come out or are coming out soon. CMK makes a beautiful 1/35 resin BR52 loco, and Trumpeter will soon be coming out with a plastic version of the BR52. I'm currently working on the Trumpeter Morser Karl with Railway Transport that is just crying for a trackside structure.

The nice part of doing structures of this type is that you could reduce them to HO as well and sell them along with your existing line.

Oh, and perhaps some russian cottages or farm buildings would be cool as well.

Hope these ideas help you. If I can be of any more help don't hesitate to ask.

Best of luck Randy!

John

Welcome Randy,good to have you join us.Glad you asked that question!
Here's a few ideas
Bridges-stone and concrete types.Intact or ruined.Bridge piers for custom discretion These could be from Holland to Greece to Italy to Egypt/N.Africa to Mid East. Ancient to modern.

European belltowers and steeples.WW2 era.
Would like to see above in 1/35 scale.
Below could be 1/72 -1/32 scale.
Docks and quays.UK-Mediterranian.Ancient to modern.

Hangers and control towers.European/Med./Mid-east.
WW2-modern.

And just for giggles...windmills,Dutch or Russian style. 1/35 scale or 1/48
cheers!

Gday Randy
Thoughful website you have, giving a list of tools etc. with which to complete your structures...
As for your question, maybe a quick read of towns/battle areas from Normandy landings onwards to Germany itself... If you picked the eyes out of these (ie. Villers Bocage, Bastogne, Remagen ) for some building locations, I'm sure there are many modellers and even more kits that would be compatible...
Cheers
Brad

Hello Randy and welcome to Armorama, and thank you for the invite on the suggestions for any of the new diorama structures you may come along with. I myself would love to see more structures based on some of the modern wars during the past 20 years. There’s not much out now, yeah Verlinden has a few middle eastern structures but that’s about it. I’d like to see some from Panama, Somalia, Persian Gulf, Iraq, just to name a few. Hey maybe even a roadside check point. Again welcome and thanks

um a britsh bombed out church and maybe some damagedn barn houses and two story buildings around the world war two era.

Wusssap Downtown!

Love your productline! I would agree that 1/35 scale productline in military will fetch you the most money (this is important right? )

European building swill probably be the most popular. Some of your existing products could also be profitable if you scale it to 1/35. The factorys, bridges, railroads, train stations and depots, garages are all common scene for the military.

I hope this help and I will support your products if you do produce 1/35 scale building.

WC

Hi Randy!

Welcome to Armorama!

I would like to see more stuff in 1/48. Buildings of course (WW2 style) but also Airfield structures to make some dios including planes and vehicles. I have Fliegerhorst's Luftwaffe Barracks in my stash and would buy more of that kind of stuff... The kit review can be seen here .
The models on your websites are great! What exactely is the scale of your O range... 1/43?

Jean-Luc

Hi Randy,

Welcome to ArmoramA, and thanks for giving our community the opportunity to contribute.

I have little to add to the above besides perhaps North & East African buildings... the era doesn't really matter as many of the buildings look today as they did 60 or more years ago...

While I note that most of the above respondents have requested 1/35, I believe that neither 1/48 or 1/72 scales should be ignored. Both of these are scales that have seen a rebirth over the last few months. Tamiya's decision to enter the 1/48 armour market has had a positive effect on the 1/48 scale market - a point I feel many don't want to admit. An example of this spin-off is that all of a sudden we've had a glut of 1/48 releases from companies like Verlinden...

HTH

Rudi

I would love to see some 1/72 contemporary buildings from the Balkan's and Eastern Europe.

So many kit manufactures are pouring out modern AFV from these conflicts (KFOR, SFOR, IFOR etc) and no one seems to make accompanying scenery. The closest I’ve seen are some c.1940’s Russian farm houses from a company in Germany.

HI,
besides all things that the guys demand I can suggest also more russian items, Russia is a negleted theater for the majority of diorama accesories companies, very few items with correct shapes and details are made for these operational theater.
... and congratulations for your RR stuff, he are first class :-)

Carlos

Hello everybody,

Your website is very cool, and your product very realistic for a so tiny scale.

Regarding your demand, I will certainly repeat some ideas developped before my post.

But first, I would like to see more churchs. But with some interior, details, archs, nave, etc.. I agree with blockhaus : russian architecture is not imited to barn and there is an enormous potential. I recently saw an exposition at the Musée d'orsay in Paris on the Russian art. There was absolutely incredible drawings of isba an orthodox churchs. Those kind of building allow you to paly with colors and whases...If you do that, I will be the first to buy it !!!

Others subjects could be part of castle, monuments (which permit to historically place a scene or a diorama, like the famous stalingrad foutain) or appartment building.

If you want to go modern, do typical balkan war buildings, they don't exist today.

Now I give you my feeling on the business choice you will have to make :

Do mainly 1/35, as it's the most common in diorama hobby, and is a good trade off for detail, but don't forget 1/48 which become stronger and stronger, and 1/72, because I think those two scales are design for plane builders, and for now they do not have building to make diorama for their planes (like depot, control tower, etc).

Use plaster, it's really better than plastic, especially if you represented stone or crepidoma.

And finally, two things will make the difference from Verlinden, Rémy, custom dioramics...
First, do entire buildings and destroyed one. For now you only have in the market destroyed building, only the frontage, no roof, etc.. It's very frustating if you want to do a deep dio.
Second, and that's the most important, do details !!! Miniart has understood that and in each of their kit (unfortunately destroyed ones..) they give you windows, lamps, posters, wrought iron..If you do a basic kit, most of the experienced modellers will do themself the building, but if you add details, you will make the difference. Dragon has also understood this point with afvs. But after seeing your rairoad production, I'm sure you will do a great job !

Wish you good luck, and I expect for my isba

Cheeeeeeers

Julien

Randy, wlecome to Armorama!

Just to echo what others have said, modern complete buildings from Europe, Middle East, Africa, etc would be excellent, especially in 1/72nd scale (I'm not expecting floral curtains and such, just a nice whole shell of a building). Let us do the interior design and, like slodder said, the battle damage. There is a definite void in this area with all of the releases from various manufacturers and the amount of releases is increasing.

I also like the idea of modular buildings. That would definitely come in handy if someone wanted to build up or out (or both ).

Thanks for asking and I hope the new product line does well.
Kyle

Randy,

Welcome! I admire your openess to suggestions. A rare quality.

As many have already stated: complete WWII European buildings would be a welcome addition. Many of us modelers would like an option when building our dio's to have or not have damage. This alone would add great value to us to have the choice.

Something to consider: as dio builders we are always interested in ways to save time and money. One thing as a "new company" who has the potential to offer us something truly useful, I would like to see more in the way of interchangable parts in the way of walls, windows, door's, store fronts, shutters, roofing, ect, that could be used to detail not only one building, but for a number of different buildings. There by allowing us to use our own creativity as designers. So we have more control of the finished look. If you were able to incorporate those thoughts into the design of your products, l believe your endevors would become very fruitful indeed...

Thank you for taking the time to listen to what we the modelers would like. That is a big step in making happy potential consumers of your products!

Regards,
Paul Rains

Thanks guys for all of the great responses! I really appreciate the input. I'm looking at any and everything at this point but here's what I'd like to do; offer a product that is a little bit different than what is already out there. Different eras, different regions, different type of kit (as far as what is included and how they go together) & 1/48 & 1/72 in addition to 1/35 (as long as I can sell enough of them).

To answer a few questions you've asked:

O Scale is 1/48. HO Scale is 1/87.

Our kits now are mainly cast hydrocal (hard plaster) w/some plastic doors/windows or laster cut wood parts. The new line would be similar.

I have a few questions. Would modelers actually be able to use "full" buildings? It would seem that even a small building in 1/35 would take up a huge footprint.

What price range is a typical 1/35 building kit/ruins priced at (US $)?

I need some good reference materials. Not just damaged buildings but stock, regional reference photos. Are there any good sites or books you could recommend?

Thanks much.

Randy
DD

For european buildings Roadkill a member here hosts a numer of reference photo's.

As for 1/35th buildings yes, whole buildings, at least the four major walls are important as this allows us the ability to decide what part of the building we would like us too use. We as the modelers like the ability to cut apart these building for our own purposes. Nothing is wasted, if I use part of the building now, I will use the rest later for future projects.

Kits can run anywhere from $15 on up depending on size and details included..