How far do you go?

Very, very nice  !!

Wow. Incredible!

Its' all in the details. Nice work. I like the figures working the scenes.

details are endless and they really make the difference.

Frank

REALLY NICE!! Your detailing is superb

Steve

Frank,

Spectacular stuff.

There are very few models I can build to the level of detail you have shown.

Alan Graziano

Amazing.

Details enhance the scenes to a higher level. No limits to what makes a scene better. The outcome is worth the effort. Great job to all................Paul

Truly superb work Frank. I have been following your layout displays with admiration since back in the day on another forum. One of a kind creativity.

While I REALLY admire folks with that expertise going to that extent; for me personally, it's not something I do. Setting the bar that high and stressing to achieve it would be turning the corner from it being pleasure to making it "work" -- and no longer fun. I gave up agonizing over being a perfectionist in this hobby a while back and am now personally happy and satisfied with doing the best I can, thereby keeping my involvement with model trains fun!

Frank

I always enjoy your work and the stories they tell. It is always the little things that make the difference.

It's not stressful for those who enjoy doing it. You were right to recognize that it is not something you are comfortable doing. After all, this is a hobby, not a competition. I think some lose sight of that.

Frank - I really love your work and am inspired every time I see it.  Thanks for sharing.

Art

Something I did a while back....

I include this side since that chimney was built brick by brick......

Very interesting to read your viewpoint, Ogaugeguy. "Being a perfectionist" never really occurred to me; rather, I simply found myself having an internal-dialogue saying, "Can I make that more like what I have seen out my car window? What am I missing?" Luckily, in answering myself, I found such a wonderful variety of foliage and ground products from Jim's Scenic Express and even more ground-covers from Dennis Brennen's website, that further detailing any given scene became even more of a joy - a real joy - and very, very far from "agonizing" or "stressing."

You might be amused to know that detailing my layout and doing some layout work for other hobbyists became my way of relaxing after returning home from a day teaching high school. Can you imagine? But then again, I found teaching adolescents, itself, to be non-stressful; instead, as relaxing and fun. Hard to imagine, some might contend, but perhaps I'm just quirky that way.

I'm not sure what - if anything - stresses me, but I know it sure isn't modeling. I'd quickly walk away from it if it were. I avoid people and situations that might cause me stress. Maybe that is why my doctors keep telling me I have, @71, perfect blood-pressure readings all the time, even right before a few surgeries I had scheduled. But I disgress...

Of course, you are right, and as Dennis indicated, you do what pleases you. You have set the bar where you are comfortable with it, naturally. Bravo. Continue to be happy with your best.

I try my best at modeling, which includes benefitting from scrutinizing the many layout scenes by master-craftsmen who have shared their work in this forum. And I continue to look out my car's window to see if I continue to be satisfied with still doing the best I can at, hopefully,  "getting it right."

FrankM.

.

Reacting to all the photos you posted in this array, and using these two to epitomize my appreciation, OMG, Martin. OMG! Absolute perfection. "How far do you go?" To museum-quality level, that's for sure. I make a deep bow in your direction, sir ! Very, very beautiful. Man-o-man, would I love to do the whole setting for that structure!

Thank you!  What I also should mention is that the walls are all board by board as are the clapboards, and so is the foundation - stone by stone.

I have not indulged in such a project to this level in quite a while, but I am working my way up to doing one again in the near future.

I will also concede that such a project does tend to take on an element of work after some point in the process (this one did...), and that may also be because it took over my shop to the point that I could nothing else.  I do like to be able to bounce back and forth between projects.....

Me too. I have had as many as six projects underway at the same time, which necessitates exiling both cars from the garage and constructing temporary tables all 'round the space. When I decided to re-do significant sections of the overall layout, I ended up clearing whole swaths of structures from real estate that was "under development" and organizing them by type (rural; suburban; industrial; railroad, etc.) and drawing from them as though they were palettes and I was painting in 3-D

Moonson  I love the way you think!!!  You are a creative visual artist!  Its obvious every time I see your work!  Keep sharing your ideas and your work.  As I've said before you are an inspiration to me!

Very beautiful work guys!!  I aspire to it, however, I am not sure I'll be able to achieve it.  I do believe that details are the story, and pursue them as best I can

This was one scene I had developed on my first layout, soot is from the corn stove   I had plans for roads, and grass and all that stuff, but tore this down to rebuild.  Now I am starting again

Details make the model, and detailed models make the scene.  It takes both an artist's

sharp eye for details, and the patience to apply them.  I have the patience but don't

think I have the artist's sharp eye for details.

You guys are truly amazing. Now, do you have some method for teaching the rest of us the basics for how to do this? That would be a tremendous help.

Thanks for the inspiration.

But maybe you do. Try it, if you feel like it - if you want to try, if it amuses you and gives you a little adventure and some enjoyment.

Be assured, I had no idea of what I was doing, at first, back in 1995, when my first-ever (adult) layout was begun, but I jumped in just 'cause it amused and intrigued me. I even had to ask the proprietor of the LHS how to make the "platforms." Plus, I saw so much nice stuff other guys were showing in the magazines, I decided to try - what the heck. At first, I kept magazines proped-up in front of me, opened to certain pages or used the covers to imitate and inspire. That worked. Then, I didn't need them anymore. I flew on my own.

The result? I learned, and many of you guys have told me you like the results. Totally win-win. There has been no loss (except for a few tress and shrubs that got destroyed in the effort, during my kindergarten period of learning and trying.)

FrankM.

First efforts at a layout, circa 1995...

Approx. same real estate, circa 2007..See any growth?

Example of the benchwork I had to be taught by the LHS guy...

I had ordered twenty 4'x8' sheets of 3/4" plywood, finished on one side, and all the 2x4's pre-cut for the frames and legs, such as you see here. When the truck from the local lumber yard pulled into my driveway, my initial reaction was to say to myself, "Whatthehell have I done!"

My wife helped me put the first 4'x8' platform upright. The fragrance of all that lumber quickly filled the basement and eventually wafted upstairs to the rest of the house. I was in a spot in heaven I had not visited since being a boy, seen here...

 Layout Number One: (not mine exactly; dad's)

Beautiful work by everyone........  love the details.   It's great how it comes through in a photo that just focuses on the main point you all are trying to make.  

Mark

Let's consider landscapes. My best method I could share with you is:

• to buy all that you might need, and even some you are not sure you would need, which includes ground-covers and all possible foliage, order it/buy it, ahead of your first actual crafting session.
• and spread it all out around you, close-by, right at your fingertips.
• The whole work area becomes, as much as is practicable, a traffic-free zone so that paints and glues do not get tracked throughout the house.
• The reason for this preparatory purchasing and arranging is so that you do not have to stop in the middle of a project because you needed to order this-or-that and didn't, or you have to go looking for a tool, or space. That puts the kibosh on the creativity.
• Next, you must have the all useful (says you) tools for crafting the landscape at your fingertips, arrayed for easy pick-up. My most often used tools are: variety of glues; bottles of water; tubes of rust colored acrylic paints and powders for impromptu weathering; tweezers; dental picks; pliers; long screwdrivers, narrow and wide; long thin, narrow sticks; paper towel; paintbrushes of various sizes and handle-lengths, for spreading and applying glues and gravels and sprinkle-on foliage varieties.
• Next, go look at the world around you. Yes, go and look. Oh, you may think you know, but you do not remember all the layers and details. Trust me in this regard. Go look.
• Lastly, take a chance. Believe in your ability to gain skill(s) from the experience of modeling. The huge variety of products in themselves are inspiring and will help inspire and guide your choices and your hands. It's not surgery; it's play. Remember that. You may make some mistakes. So what? You can remove most of the ingredients and start again. Better than the first time.

For example. See these rural scenes and these sections of a "logging bock"? I wanted to do a whole series of such forestry logging "blocks" but realized I really had no idea what the floor of a forest really looked like. So, I drove 4 hrs. from NJ to Upstate NY, near Syracuse, and walked into stands of trees and forests, and I examined the edges of the forests as they met the roadways along the way, like Rts. 81, 380, and 11. Big surprise - all the undergrowth and low foliage and weeds, etc. present along with the trees themselves. I had to look. I thought I knew , but I did not know, not enough, at least, to model it.

Go look. You will enjoy the results. I did.

...and I was lucky enough to have come across some logging actually being done along Rt.280 in Cortland, so I pulled over and watched, taking pictures with my mind (pre-i-phone days.)

FrankM.

Does this help inspire you further, Bill??

It saddens me to read so often statements by folks of what they can't do or whatever because they lack the skills, etc.  More often than not I believe that they are giving up before trying - takes practice and more practice.  I will have a stack of period photos on hand to consult along with some period RPPC's of the region to capture the style and those details that you should be seeing.  A little research goes a long ways as to what your eye should be seeing and directed/focuses towards.  Start small and work your way forward with practice.

Moonson, your modeling is extraordinary. I also can see the teacher in your post. Your expertise and advice is very helpful to those of us that are not at your level yet. Thanks for both. I enjoy adding details to my models. I like to have a scene in buildings so you see something interesting when you peer in the windows. My modeling is nowhere near that of yours or mwb but it's fun and I get little better with every model I do. 

And, there's the ticket!

Moonson.....I think you have modeled ....emotion....congratulations!

Martin nailed it. I completely agree.

You've captured it!!!!  That is so real.

Thanks for sharing your talent.

An exceptional thing to say, George, Thank you.

And the same sincere appreciation is extended for very kind and supportive comments to:

Jim Pistoris, "very, very nice!"

Gary Graves, "Wow. Incredible!"

PAUL ROMANO, "It's all in the..."

AG, "details are endless..."

L.I.TRAIN, "Really nice!"

Alan Graziano, "Spectacular stuff..."

Spence, "Amazing."

paul2, "Details enhance..."

Dewey Trogdon,"Frank...one of a kind creativity..."

suzukovich, "I always enjoy..."

trumptrain, "...You are a creative..."

PatKn, "Your modeling is extraordinary..."

Tom Shirey, "You have modeled emotion..."

Chugman, "...I really love your work..."

And my sincere Thanks for "Likes" sent to me by:

86TA355Sr; Gary Graves; Andrew B.; L.I.Train; paul\matt; Spence; dk122trains; Chugman; Laidoffsick; gnnpnut; Dennis B.; Bill Webb; trainroomgary; GEF; Pat Kn; J Daddy; wmtrainnut09; SouthernMike.

FrankM.

Here's another little favorite project, "Old Fashioned Treasures" antiques dealer, inspired by a few places I saw in Lancaster, PA, esp. along Rts.30 & 896...

I have some fun with room details in apartment buildings close to the viewer...a couple "making out" on a couch that is under a "religious" wall hanging, a old woman knitting surrounded by Elvis pictures, a guy talking on the 'phone while sitting on the toilet, etc.

I agree with mwb!  People tend to give up before trying.  Never give up.  The more you do, the better you get.  I talk to people every day that tell me, "This is awesome, I could never do what you do."  I tell them that it doesn't happen overnight. If you really want to get better at what you do, keep doing it. Pretty much like golf.  I understand all of the math, the angles, the swing, the arcs, etc., etc. but putting it all together is a whole different story.  Maybe if I golfed every day, I'd shoot in the nineties. (ha) 

A layout or vignette or display, whatever you want to call it, is as good as what you are good at.  This forum has a wealth of knowledge. I learned how to "rust" stuff from this forum. I spent hours working on one black plastic sprocket and when I was done, I showed it to one of the guys at work and he actually thought I had left it outside for 5 years and let nature take its course.  I made a couple more and they became trash outside of a manufacturing plant. I took two plastic domes that I should have thrown away and made a propane tank, complete with my propane supplier's logo and name that I made from photos and decal paper.  I love "the thrill of the hunt", getting an idea and figuring out how to make it happen. 

This is not "rocket science"!  There's a lot of common cense and imagination involved. Think outside of the box (what an over-used saying), I never think inside the box.  Perfectionism is not a bad thing, it's a goal. Most people never get close, and those that think they have, really haven't.  They just set the bar a little higher.  Just have fun with whatever you are doing.

A couple more. Did I go far enough? 

How 'bout you? Have you gone far enough to make yourself happy?

Moonson,

Absolutely fantastic photos. You get the feeling that you are peeking into a real life scene. Great modeling and just as great photography.