I was talking with a friend about this in the trainroom last night and they suggested I share it.
This concept isn't for everyone, and I'm not imposing it on anyone, but it has been a useful guide to me for over twenty years.
I "rate" or "classify" the model buildings, scenery, diecast cars, boats, locomotives and rolling stock I build or buy in terms of distance: how close do I have to get before it does not look good to me?
- A four-foot model looks good at four feet, but from two feet away I can see some details are missing, or that the paint and graphics aren't really crisp, etc.
- A one-foot model will look good from just one foot away: the details I expect are all there, the finish, paint, graphics and lettering, if there, look good, etc. It might not look good from half a foot away . . .
This is still a somewhat subjective judgement. What does "look good" mean? Every person has to make up their own mind there. But I have my own standard that I understand, and using it and this concept, it guides me in building my layout.
Also, I decided long ago to judge models as models. I've seen models that look absolutely real in photos that have been posed and taken just so. They look indistinguishable from real. But I have never seen an actual model, in person and 3-D, that looked so real it did not look like a model. So I judge my models that way: it is a model, but is it a good looking model, and how far away does it look good from?
I then use this as a guide in making models and scenery for my layout. For example, I recently completed this small cabin cruiser for my boatyard. Guys, this is a neatly done, scale model of a 36-foot cabin cruiser. I got lots of compliments on it when I posted pictures. But look at it critically for a moment in the picture below. There are a lot of missing details: it does not have running lights, there are no instruments or controls on the dashboard - the steering. You can't see into the boat through the windows. In back, the two exhaust pipes are just painted round black holes, etc.
It's a four-foot model, to me. A nice, neatly made, four foot model, but a really poor one-foot model . . .
Which is fine, because it (just left of middle, below) is 58 inches (nearly five feet) from the edge of the layout (lower right corner) in the photo below. It is impossible to get within even four feet of it if you lean in over the layout.
I don't have a detailed model boat on the layout, but here is a 1/87 model ship on display in my office, one of several "six-inch models" I've made over the years. The hammers of the workmen, etc., have heads and wooden handles, their toolboxes are open with tiny augers and chisels in them, etc. You can actually lean in to closer than six inches here, but six inches is about the best I can make . . .
I let this concept of model detail versus distance guide me in what I make and how much time I spend on it when I build my layout. The Indian Trail motel in the background is about three and a half feet from the edge of the layout. It is printed paper or foam, made is 3-D, but without a lot of detail other than what is printed. In the foreground of the photo below, still nearly 18 inches from the viewer, are several "eighteen inch" trailers, rather detailed but you can't see details through the windows, etc. I made them to this level of detail, spending time to make the details one can see, but not spending time of details you cannot.
Here's another example, a one foot model of Dean Martin's restaurant in Hollywood in the 1950s, located about twenty inches from the edge of the layout . . . . the building is rather detailed, having brass metal door handles where one ca see them and tiny lanterns and lights in the car port area, etc. John Wayne and Dean Martin (with Veranda Turbine) both have painted tuxes with bowties: you can barely see them from a foot away.
This bookstore - Lionel or MTH made it I think, I don't recall, but the building itself is not bashed much, has an interior added to clear windows I installed, because it is only 14 inches from the layouts edge . . .
And maybe the most detail on my layout is here. The pie is the Sky restaurant is also fourteen inches from the layout edge, but in a place that invits one to lean in over it, and directly below bright lights: waitresses here hold menus in their hands, there are flowers in vases on the tablecloths (well, they look like flowers from six inches away!), a full interior inside with diners, etc.,
This concept guides me when I buy diecast cars, etc. - or at least when I decide which go where. Note the cars parked in front of the cathedral. They are the only New Ray diecast cars on the layout: nothing really wrong with New Ray. They often cost only $7 on sale. But they are not always scale, sometimes being a bit small, and they do not have nearly the detail and finish of more expensive models. But they are fully six feet from any observer: if they were NEO, Spark, the details would be totally lost anyway. But on main street (near the lower portion of the photos, and my NEO, Spark, and the the better Brooklin models parked as close as six inches from the layout's edge.
Maybe the best example of this concept in use is Reed and Malloy's Adam 12 cruiser . . . Here it is as most visitors and I see it, unless I am up on a sptep stool and leaning over the layout. I think it looks okay here . . . .
But it you get closer - not that it is easy to - you will see that I hand-lettered the 012 on the top of One Adam Twelve . . . it's just a tiny bit not perfect . . .
And should you somehow manage to get within three inches, you'd see that: a) I didn't mask the car perfectly when I repainted it (it was not a police cruiser when I bought it) and b) the Los Angeles Police emblem on the door is in fact penciled markings that are sort of like the shape and where the real logo is located. Again, it looks good from three or four feet, but absolutely lousy from three inches. In fact, frankly, the model car loosk pretty lousy this close up, come to think of it . . .
Again, this concept isn't for everybody, and sometimes it is not for me: I have put interior in buildings, or bought detailed diecast cars and trucks, that I then put far from the layou's edge, just because i wanted to build a detailed building interior, or buy that particular car. But when I plan my layout and determine how much effort and time to devote to which various parts of it, I use this concept to help me decided what to build.
