First scenery work: diorama

[Kumo]

When we visited Poppondetta in august with my girlfriend before leaving Japan, she offered me a mini diorama set all inclusive (except for the paint & glue). It's 17cm x 8cm and costed about 2000¥. It came with a sheet of instructions with pictures.
You can see the website of the guy who makes them. He does pretty neat work on those mini diorama. I've read that he organizes sometimes workshop at Poppondetta Akiba, so if you're there...
http://blogs.yahoo.co.jp/masa233830

I wanted to start a layout, but I didn't know if I would like doing all this work so she figured buying me this set would be a nice start too see if I like doing it. And I did!! :-)

I bought the train separately in a shop in Fukuoka, I liked the design and color and I think this is the one from the movie "Railways". I saw it when I went to Izumo Taisha.


IMG_0982 by loriskumo, on Flickr

So here I am after some hours of work, discoveries, paint, glue and fake grass on my desk...


Untitled by loriskumo, on Flickr

The train really had a plastic look, except for the main body that I just made dirty, I think I re-painted everything.

Untitled by loriskumo, on Flickr


Untitled by loriskumo, on Flickr


Untitled by loriskumo, on Flickr

This persuaded me to make a bigger one where my trains could ride. I'll probably make modules as I don't have room for this, but I really liked working on this.

I'll try to make pictures with a brighter light but I like the look and feel of those ones! :-)

[Kumo]

And a stylish Instagram picture! ^_^

[Martijn Meerts]

Looks good :)

For the next one, you should try painting the sleepers (flat dark brown for example) and the rails (rust), it really makes quite a difference.

[Kumo]

Thanks Martijn!

I didn't think about the sleepers, but I did paint gently the rails with a rust color. I guess this isn't obvious on my pictures. 

[Bernard]

Really nice display!
For the track what code did you use 80 or 55?

[Kumo]

Really nice display!
For the track what code did you use 80 or 55?

I have no idea and to be honest, I don't even know the difference...
The tracks were given with the set, I just had to stick it on the stand! :-)

[Martijn Meerts]

Looks like code 80 to me.

Kumo, the difference between the codes is the height of the rail itself, code 80 is higher than code 55.

[cteno4]

Kumo,

great work! its a great way to get started and try a lot of the little things you have to do on a real layout to see if it trips your trigger so to speak.

have fun. you might think of a mini tram layout, bill has posted a number of ideas on jns in the past and on his blog. you can get a wooden tea tray from wallyworld as a cheap, but nice module base for projects like this. just big enough for a little loop of track a few structures and some nice little scenes. you can even put a turn out in them so that you could hook two together with a connector track around your desk!

have fun, glad you enjoyed the starter project!

cheers

jeff

[cteno4]

Kumo

forgot to mention you might look at ttrak or rolling your own sort of ttrak modular/sectional to save space!

cheers

jeff

[Kumo]

Looks like code 80 to me.

Kumo, the difference between the codes is the height of the rail itself, code 80 is higher than code 55.

Thanks for the tip.
It looks the same than my Tomix Finetrack, so if you know the code of them, you'll have your answer! 

Kumo,

great work! its a great way to get started and try a lot of the little things you have to do on a real layout to see if it trips your trigger so to speak.

have fun. you might think of a mini tram layout, bill has posted a number of ideas on jns in the past and on his blog. you can get a wooden tea tray from wallyworld as a cheap, but nice module base for projects like this. just big enough for a little loop of track a few structures and some nice little scenes. you can even put a turn out in them so that you could hook two together with a connector track around your desk!

have fun, glad you enjoyed the starter project!

cheers

jeff

I feel like tram would be a nice option, but I'd rather have it next to my trains than alone.

I think my next project will be a bigger module (100cm x 40cm or something like that) with a single track crossing a country or light-suburban scene. I bought a Tomix Lawson and I definitely want trains to pass next to it!! :-)

The bit of the problem I have it that I'm really into Shinkansen. It means at least two loops: shinkansen (witch looks more serious with double tracks), local and maybe eventually tram.

In january I will probably make a big order including overhead station, overhead oval (for the shinkansen to run) a third transformer and small scenery for my module project (witch is not more for the moment than what you read up there).

Ok, it seems big, but I would really love those shinkansen overhead!

In the end (module or not) I would like to have a big station and station front (Eki-mae) including Shinkansen, local and those cute trams!

This is not counting on the fact that I also started buying Swiss trains. Because I don't care too much about realistic, I just want to see nice trains running! The only thing I want to make the right way is HS trains on separate tracks! :-)

The good thing with modules is that I could have different ambiances (winter, spring, seaside, switzerland, etc.) and I don't have room anyway for a big layout.

It seems all a bit confuse but trust me, it's confuse in my head too!

I'm glad you enjoyed my small diorama!

[KenS]

This is a nice-looking diorama. As others have noted, in a diorama the details become more important. I think you know that from your comments on painting the car, and I really like its appearance. Rail and tie color is certainly important (and remember to keep the top of the rail shiny, since it gets polished by the wheels). But more important than that, at least to me, are people.  The train needs a driver, and preferably a few passengers.

One of the things I find appealing about TTrak modules, although I've never built one (yet, anyway) is that they're essentially dioramas, so you can create one focused and highly detailed scene.

BTW, "code" refers to the height of the rail in 1/1000 of an inch (i.e., code 80 is 0.080" high, or almost exactly 2mm, and code 55 (0.055" or 1.397mm) is quite visibly different even from a distance. However, some manufacturers of track reportedly disguise this by setting the base of the rail into the ties. Taller rail is necessary with some N-scale models that have wide-flanged wheels (so-called "pizza cutter" wheels), and used to be the norm in N-scale. Many better models now use smaller flanges (and in a diorama it doesn't matter), but not all, and the Japanese market seems less concerned with this than the North American one. In N-scale, even code 55 is really too high to be prototypical (see this link); that's just one of the compromises we make to work in this scale.

I look forward to seeing more about your future work, be it a layout, modules or another diorama.  And I don't think we're such purists that a Swiss tain in a Japanese station would offend us.  I have this GG1 which will eventually pull a set of Japanese coaches on my layout, simply because I love the GG1 design (clearly it's a replica made as some kind of railroad publicity stunt  ).

[scott]

And a stylish Instagram picture! ^_^

Very stylish, but that looks awfully washed out for RVP. ;-)  Never liked the stuff myself, but NPH is great.

The diorama is definitely looking good, although a couple of the pictures won't load on my computer. Looking forward to seeing what all you do with this. :-)

[Webskipper]

I like it.