Good morning!
We're at blog post 50!! Another milestone in the history of Modelist. :-)
Last Sunday was BSMC convention in Putte. Saw lots of great models, shook hands with plenty of nice people, and I had a decent day of sales. In all, a very good day! Next one is February 23: the MKB convention in Puurs-St-Amands.
Meanwhile, what's been happening at my shop? The San Francisco tram has disappered from my window and is going to its new home. What's coming in its place? Keep an eye on this blog. ;-)
In builds, I've been steadily working on the suspension units for the Daimler. They're fiddly, but I'm actually getting there without major troubles. I did make a big mistake: it's not overly clear in the instructions where the units are going and I mistakenly glued the right front suspension in the rear left position... Luckily I was able to pry it loose and fix it in the correct spot.
Here are the front right springs in their correct position:
And the rear left:
Once the last (rear right) unit is on, I can add the linkages for the front steering and then the front body plates can be glued in place.
I've (finally!) found the material for the moss on the buildings. I've taken inspiration from Night Shift's
video for this (roof moss starts at 22:28). He uses Woodland Scenics Fine Turf and I remembered having bought some of this stuff long ago (like maybe 20 years). This 'turf' is finely cut and grinded foam material, available in different colours and grades. So I went digging in my piles of modelling stuff. I found some 'Coarse turf' first and tried it. This didn't work. Some further archeological exploration finally unearthed a plastic jar labelled 'Earth T42', which is the correct grade.
Here's the jar of fine turf:
Here's a comparison with the coarse turf. Coarse on the left, fine on the right:
So, fine turf found, I used Night Shift's method: dilute some white glue with water, blob this on the roof, sprinkle turf over it. After the glue is dry, paint it with two very diluted colours, going wet-on-wet to allow it to blend a bit. I used Ammo-Mig 074 Green Moss for the base, then
Mr. Hobby H-058 Interior Green as a blended highlight (exact colours don't really matter; you basically need a darker green and a lighter olive).
This is what it looks like on the slate roof. I tried to concentrate it a bit near the wall, as moss would be growing more in shadowy areas.
And on the tiles:
I think I need to clean up some of the smaller speckled dots of moss. The tiles also need a flat coat, because they're still shiny.
I also tried to add some run-off under the roof edges. This still needs work, as it doesn't look very realistic:
Alright. That's how far I've gotten last week. December is pretty busy, so work at home (on the Junkers for instance) has stalled a bit.
See you next week for the second-to-last blog of the year!
Reminder: the 24th I'll be open until 4pm.
