Books

It would have been fairly easy to have picked a better title for this week's blog,  but I've gone with the mundane. 
Last week's blog featured a few books I'd made to enhance a desk and the photograph to the right shows a similar idea, the model also features a newspaper which I've made.
The model desk is another of my early attempts at making a card model (WWG I believe) and is in fact the same desk and not two desks.
The idea to make books started quite a while ago and I used up any paint still left on a brush  before finally having to wash the brush out.
I started with a rough rectangular grid on paper and filled it in as time went by.

The grid was not measured in any way., though an effort was made to keep it at 90 degrees.
The next step, once all the sheet was filled in was to cut it intoi strips.
I cut most strips the length of the sheet and a few the width of the sheet. Lengthways cuts would give me books more or less the same width, whilst strips cut width-ways gives me books the same height; both have advantages and disadvantages, though I prefer the length way cuts.
The photograph on the right shows the strips, with three of them folded, ready to receive the middle.

For the next step I cut and glued several layers of newspaper.
There was no need for any great degree of accuracy here.
In the photograph can be seen a black strip which has not been folded; this strip was going top be treated in a slightly different way.

I next glued the paper inserts into the folded strips and used clips to hold their shape whilst they dried.

The black strip didn't need clips at this stage, as the newsprint was glued directly onto it.

 Once glued (more or less), the strips were trimmed of excess newspaper and I did some painting on the "books" to represent titles, pictures, authors etc.
It'll be noticeable that the black strip got slightly different  treatment to the other strips.
After finishing what little painting I thought appropriate I cut and trimmed the books from the strips. Books that appeared too tall were merely cut in half and made two books of a more acceptable size.
The black strip again got a slightly different treatment as I cut these to the same lengths; as they would represent volumes of the same set. They were then stuck together, as if on a shelf and a bit of detailing added to them.
The final results can be seen on the photograph.
I did varnish the books and hence the glare , but the overall effect I think is pretty good considering that the smallest ones are about half a centimetre square.
All the books in the picture came from just one strip  and I've got a lot of strips !

That's it for this week and as always, your comments are both welcomed and appreciated.

Hotchpotch

I think the title says it all as I haven't really got that much to offer this week.

About this time last year, when I was contemplating setting up this blog I was surfing the interweb looking for US Police cars, Taxis and Ambulances, none of which were forthcoming (the quest goes on). I later decided to venture in the field of card modelling some vehicles, alas this project was quickly squashed after the disaster that was my first attempt at a police car, from (WWG).
 I think I built the model sometime last summer.  I have got a few vehicles that are suitable for games, but I don't think I'll ever approach gridlock on my table.

The photograph on the left shows one of my recent Poundland finds.

It's a mesh (obviously) that I'll use for many different things in making scenery.
The most obvious use is for fences, but window frames, iron grill-work and industrial flooring all spring to mind too.
 Materials like this have been around for ages of course, I still have some platci canvas that I've used on all sorts of projects  over the years.
There is also the metallic stuff used in car body-work, that ttoo has been around for years and makes excellent fences, razor wire etc.
It wasn't the fact that its dishwasher and freezer-proof that attracted me to it but its size.
The mesh is about a quarter inch (6mm) but the whole sheet is far larger than a sheet of A4 paper, measuring about 14 inches x 10 inches (approx 350mm x 250mm).
It has the same flexiblity and rigidity as plastic canvas but is a lot thinner (but thicker than the metal stuff).

I haven't a clue as to how it glues yet, but it can easily be cut. I'll be making something out of it in the near future.
Whilst waiting for things to dry out, (mostly walls) using my new acrylics  (125ml from Poundland) I made this desk.. The whole thing took about an hour to make and paint (excluding drying time).
The leg looks a little wonky, but that's because it is. It's easily remedied as the whole thing is made from card and paper and card bends  !

Here's where the desk will eventually end up (even if it still has a wonky leg)
There's next to no more space in the room as it will only measure 2" x 3" (approx 50mm x 75mm), which doesn't leave a lot of room to put figures in, let alone a chair and filing cabinet that I envisaged.
Putting a chair tucked in under the desk will help save some space though and rather than putt a filing cabinet in I may just add something to the walls  for decoration.

Adjacent to the office above will be the toilet (restroom. bathroom). I've already figured out half the furniture for the interior, but I wasn't happy with my last attempt at a wash-basin.
I've been eyeing various packaging with a view to using it in models.
As can been seen from the photograph, the sink unit was made from tablet packaging (I get through a lot of these things every week) and a piece of card. It's not the best stuff to work with, but it does cut easily. There a lot of different tablet package designs out there and look out for square ones that could make skylights, capsule type ones that could make bath-tubs etc.
It's not just tablet packaging either, in the past  I've made domes from the tops of shampoo bottles; toothpaste caps make excellent flower pots, litter bins, waste-paper bins and so on.
The final photograph shows the next stage in a project that I started weeks ago. It started out in life as a sheet of paper to which I added a grid of rectangles. the grid was slowly filled in with paint randomly.
I've now got to the stage where I've cut the sheet vertically into strips and the three strips to the right of the photo have been folded over. On that note I'll leave you to ponder what it all about.

That's it for this week, comments as always are both welcomed and appreciated.

BOG OFF

Back in October I briefly dumped this photo of Sid and my prototype toilet in another article.
Since then I have  made  a lot  more of them using more or less the same process.
Because I was going to "mass-produce" these, I used strips of cork left over from my terrain board endeavours.
Each strip was about 300mm long and about 35mm wide (4mm-5mm thick cork).
I drew out two rows of 15mm squares for the upper parts of the toilet.
For the lower parts other scrap strips were used approximately 10mm wide, but as can be seen in the photograph this was not always the case.
 An interesting bonus occurred when I came to cutt the individual top part out in that because I had an extra 5mm width to the original 15mm square I decided to retain it and use it to support a cistern. The original prototype had the cistern flush with the rear of the toilet, but this extra 5mm give me a ledge to sit a cistern on.
All the upper 15mm squares (with and without the 5mm lip) were then given a hole in the centre using a craft knife,
Once all the necessary holes were roughly cut through the bottom pieces were glued in place.

The next stage was the interminable filing of the base and the upper bowl to get some semblance of a real toilet shape. This was the most time-consuming part of the whole task, taking probably more than 5 minutes per unit.
The close up on the left shows the wide variations in style and size that I accidently acheived though I did try and make a few more or less the same.
The odd bit of cork in the top left of the photograph are the already formed cisterns, though not glued in place.

 The next stage was to cut mor scraps of cork into a cistern like shape to fit on the rear of those toilets with the 5mm lip. A quick bit of filing later so that it doesn't look completely square cut and the toilet would be almost complete.

The last bit of "modelling" to do was to put a handle on those that had a cisterns .
The others would be put up against a wall with a hidden cistern as seems to be quite common nowadays and the handle for those would consequently would go on the wall.

Lastly here's a close up of Sid with the finished gloss-varnished product, which it doesn't show up well in my photographs (but then again what does ?)

The uneven appearance of theses is due to the black cloth I use for backgrounds and the crap that was underneath it, plus some of the units with the cisterns on the rear were a bit unstable and tended to lean backwards. This won't matter if they rest up against a wall or are glued into position.
These of course are fairly rough, but do pass the two foot rule (I can make out what they are meant to be at arm's length) and I'm quite happy with them. An obvious improvement woould be to have an actual seat on them and that's a possiblity that I'll consider when I actually get to place them into a building. An alternative to the white porcelain bowl would be silver as used in prisons and possibly cells, though I'm no expert. As I've still got several in various stages of build, this is again something to consider for the future.

That's it for this week; as always all comments are both welcomed and appreciated

Bored with Boards

Well, now that the disruptive shift-changes of work in the last two weeks is finally over and my back isn't playing up so much any more things should return to normal.
I, of course. had a very sombre and pious New Year and now that the hang-over has finally cleared I can think about trying to do something  to progressing my zombie project.(anything would be a bonus)
These two boards were made in the same way as all my other my  terrain boards, namely 4mm (thereabouts) xork pavements and raised areas onto 6mm MDF.

They, of course follow the same principle of painting that I've used in the past and currently one of the few things I didn't have to worry about painting.
I could use a three inch brush despite my poor eyesight and didn't have to worry unduly about any detail (there isn't any)
The finer detail, such as it was, was achieved by the liberal use of masking tape.

Where's Sid?

I did have a problem I mistaking brown paint with  grey and hence the very red appearance of the "ground" areas.
 It was sorted out later of course.showed.
The reasoning behind making even more terrain board was that these would feature wider roads.
They're actually twice the width of the roads I've used on the other boards, being 200mm wide rather than 100mm.
They will of course still tessalate with the other boards and with themselves, although the photograph seems to  argue against this, it is merely because of the orietation of the boards.
With these two boards I can now have a wide road the length of my eight foot table or a six foot length of road with a wide "T"  junction at one end. 
I painted the junction road marking differently to my other junctions just for variety.
The boards themselves are 4 foot by 2 foot (1200mm x 600mm). I still have another wide raod section to make, though this will be on 2 foot square board and I also have three other terrain boards, but I've yet to decide what to with them - there's two of the larger variety and one more of the smaller square types. One of the larger boards will almost certainly be some form of green urban terrain,