MTH and LIONEL building are too plastic-y they need to look at Woodland Scencs and Menards

Paint?

Arthur P. Bloom posted:

Paint?

Paint plus details. I never paid more than 15 bucks for Lionelville. Lionel, MTH, Walthers, now Atlas are for DIYers. There are still a lot of us out there. 

Pete

AlanRail posted:

Building my city. getting rid of the Plasticville in favor of Woodland Scenics buildings. I find I can incorporate Menards buildings into the city but not MTH nor Lionel buildings as they are way too plastic-looking, a lot like the finish on Plasticville buildings. 

MTH and LIONEL need to take a look at Woodland Scenics approach to "building making" and take a step up.

IMHO.

I find a coat of dull coat helps quite a bit.  I use my air brush to paint some of the detail parts and they come out ok.

I suppose it depends on the look you are going for. I think Plasticville and Lionel will work fine with my layout as I'm not looking for realism/realistic. YMMV.

I have MTH and Menards mixed in my city scene and they look great.

Alan,  I Think you just like to complain. 

Dave

OK for those that can spend 2 to 3 times the money. I'm not to the point where I can spend $100 and up for a building.

Then possibly no buildings would be made having a postwar or mpc look 

I think the 

  Paint, build a new roof; build new walls for an old roof. Add a tv antenna, sand off a shingle, add a gutter and a downspout, etc.

While I agree that the buildings have that shine that gives them a plastic look I have tones of MTH buildings on the layout and I dont notice it any longer. My city looks great, I have seen where people have used the mortar painting method on them and painted the concrete accents on them like lintels and what not and that definitely adds to them but you cant get those kinds of buildings anywhere else.

From left to right, Walthers (Atlas), Lionel, Lionel.

MTH

Pete

Not Woodland Scenics, but I’m working on it. 

I personally love the way MTH's buildings look right out of the box.  I hope they don't change it because I don't like the look of Woodland Scenics buildings.  MTH's fit perfectly on my layout giving me the exact look I want.

The look of virtually EVERY built-up structure can be improved if the hobbyist is willing to take the time (at very little expense) needed to personalize the building a bit to make it fit the desired era, age, etc. I'm a big fan of Woodland Scenics buildings myself, but will also have MTH, Lionel, Menards, Atlas, Ameri-Towne, Korber, and others on my new layout if they fit the scene I am modeling. But, then, I enjoy spending a bit of time doing some of this personalization. There's no end to what can be done.

First, David1 Dave I dont just like to complaint, I LOVE TO....

Second, Allan M,  I have enough to do fitting these models into the layout, to have to work on the models and then fit them into the layout.  Woodland Scenics and Menards ( though I do remove the sidewalk base) have made using stock models easy to incorporate in to a town.

I have plenty to do making sidewalks, streets, curbs, not to mention city planning work, wiring street lights, traffic signals, adding sewer grates, hydrants,parking meters, signage, trees, people and cars.

Do I have to re-work the buildings too?

That's all part of the fun!

Any glossy, plastic looking building fan be greatly inproved with a coat of flat paint or just even dullcote.    Also look at the trim pieces and compare them with what  you see outside.    A coat of more realistic paint there can do a lot too.  

Do a little painting and weathering on the buildings is a very cheap way to improve their appearance and your modeling skills.

If you got the space and the money and if you like it then good for you.  I like all my MTH and Lionel buildings, got them at great prices and like the way they look on my layout.

You know what happened to Williams. People wanted more, WBB gave them more, including a big price increase.

AlanRail posted:

Do I have to re-work the buildings too?

Nope, you don't have to do a darn thing if you're happy with what you have. If you're not happy with the buildngs, you then have a couple of alternatives: Don't buy them in the future or purchase them and make 'em into what you would like them to be. I seriously doubt you are going to see either Lionel or MTH produce the detailed/weathered type of structures being offered by Menards and Woodland Scenics. I could be wrong about that, but I suspect I'm not.

I have most every built-up O scale building Woodland Scenics has produced to date, and I really like them a lot. Virtually all will see use on my new layout with just minor modifications. They are superb albeit somewhat costly buildings, but in my view you definitely get what you pay for. The MTH, Lionel, Menards, and other buildings I have (kit form and built-up) will take a bit more work, but fortunately I kind of enjoy doing that sort of thing.

Look for scale model brick mortar to rub into the lines on the buildings. 

Andrew

99.9% of my structures are either kit or scratch built but, awhile back I took an MTH corner building to see what I could do with it to fit in with my highly weathered buildings. Actually, it was pretty easy, not really time consuming. First Dullcote, then with a soft brush, add powders. The powders with adhesive work great but, you can use plain powder scraped off chalks, then another very light coat of matte spray. Just those two steps will transform the building tremendously. From there, depending on your preferences, you could paint any part (like walls or just window sills), add details like vents, rain gutters (wire), roof details (scrap wood, barrels, crates or anything that might have been left up there), add a roof access with a rectangular piece of styrene, window shades and, of course, signage. Pretty easy and satisfying way to make the building "your own" and can be done in steps in between work on other projects. 

Structure-building is one of the model railroading activities that I enjoy the most, and all structures on my two layouts are from craftsman kits, scratch-built or Ameritowne. This allows for a wider variety of structures, and possibly greater realism and uniqueness, than purchasing only "built-and-ready" models. Clearly, my approach is time-consuming, but that is one of the reasons I am in the hobby. Nonetheless, many layouts that I see on the Forum have very realistic structures and downtowns done with ready-made models that have been painted, weathered or modified - to the extent that I have considered whether I should use some pre-built structures in the future. I'm unlikely to do so because I like building models but, from what I can see, pre-built structures, suitably modified, are just as effective on a model railroad. And they certainly speed up layout completion.

MELGAR