A week on

Haven't been updating as they'd only show the same thing. More and more contextual buildings are being added to the collection. I want to have them all finished by thursday as I'm getting quicker and more accurate. Here are some pictures to show where I am...

Nearly there..

More than half of the surroundings have been made. This has been a slow and tedious process and I wish I had something more spectacular to look at 6 weeks into the project but I have learnt a lot and each part I create is faster and more accurate than the last.

My 'tweaked' dimensions..

 This illustrates how I am simplifying the structures. I get the average thicknesses of the buildings and from that, create about 3 different thicknesses of laminated wood which is used to build them. This simplifies the build, speeds up the fabrication of the parts and should hopefully produce a crisper result.

Work harder!

And my workbench.

Things should start coming together towards the end of this week as I finish the surrounding area and baseboard and start moving onto the Kunsthaus Graz itself. I actually wanted to have the 'blue blob' of the building finished, polished and ready for moulding and casting by now but have found it difficult finding styrene rod to help make the windows. This will be started tomorrow.

Behind the scenes...

...I have basically finished the elevation drawings which will be used to clad the acrylic. Time permitting, I want this to be etched from brass to get a bit of detail into the model. We shall see.

An up close shot of the detail in the drawings. I think the pattern in the handrail is probably going over the top and I would be very surprised if this level of detail will even be noticeable at this scale. However, if I'm spending £30 getting stuff acid etched, it's worth a try...



The only thing worrying me, apart from the impending deadline, is the final colour of things. I like the look of the natural pine buildings, I just don't want it to look like a 'mock-up' model and I hope once I add the more modern, polished 'gem' of the Kunsthaus, this feeling will go away. As well as this, my client has asked to have more muted colours (which I agree with) so I am now leaning more towards leaving the entire baseboard in a natural finish (exluding the R.Mur) with the only colour coming from the blue (Kunsthaus,Mur), green (grass on Mur bank, trees) and maybe the red/varnish (roofs of buildings)...