Your Layout Vignettes

Somewhere in rural America...

FrankM.

Great story telling, Frank

 

What a nice way of putting it, Mill City. Thank you.

Fantastic!  One of the things I love so much about this thread is sometimes seeing the same vehicles or figures I have, used in different ways or weathered differently.

 

Moonson, I have that very same tractor the very one!  Yours is a beautiful set of scenes you have posted.  As they say, a good vignette tells a story all by itself.  Great storytelling! Wonderful!

Thanks, Lee, it's enjoyable earning your approval for the scenes I make. I'm glad you like this li'l scene here, too, since it was inspired over time by several leisurely drives upstate NY and through PA, taking me a while to finally sit down to do, after having collected numerous visual impressions in my head. FrankM

Frank,

Your scene is exactly what I was referring to in my comments about the way you going about designing "life." The scene is fabulous because there is everything about it that is so lifelike. The structures are built and weathered perfectly, figures, vehicles and implements are placed in such a fashion that the eye is only waiting for the people to start working and a bird or two to fly in. A Frank Mullen Insta-Rama is the Ferrari of model railroads. 

 

Eliot

 

A Santa Fe small Hudson leading the Scout out of town. 1952.

EastonO - I love the UFO - wow!  It looks good with those flashing lights and aliens.

 

RonH - I have pictures of much this very scene with a train being helped up and over Raton pass - my uncle drove some of the helper locos in the late 40s/early 50s.

Terry; love the UFO. I kept waiting for it to take off. (LOL)

Steam does the head end job!  Nice video!

That certainly is a nice way of putting it.  Spot on!  Great work, Frank!

Maybe that's the old English teacher in me showing through, Mark.

 

It's just that, like life, a well-detailed layout, like a life well-lived, is a conversation, one conducted - crafted - among all the miniature elements, which includes how each figure relates to the other, and how they relate to their surroundings and every element in it. Colors. Textures. Shapes. Everything speaks. The story is told by all its elements, chief among which is the life of the trains themselves as they zip, jet, or wend their way through a miniature world created just for them.

 

Some literature grabs us; some leaves us flat. But when there is a truth to the message, we get it. We see it for what it is - a conversation - a story - for the literate eye to enjoy.

That's my truth.

FrankM.

Eliot, I don't know what I ever did to earn your friendship, but I am sure glad I did. Thank you for what you have said here, most sincerely.

FrankM

Frank....I could not have said what Eliot spoke in his words about any better.....you have been blessed with the "golden touch"....

 

Alan

 

 

My vote for the best Vignettes are those that actually show railroading in the frame,

not just city street scenes, and of those, the champ is C. SAM!

 

Rip Track

I could never be a judge at a contest.  There are so many great photos here.  Trains, railroaders, structures, scenery, and on and on.  So many ways a modeler can be inspired.

Mark...you are an amazing person....  I admire your posts as you always find a way to help others in your positive comments.  Thanks so much!

 

Alan

I agree with Alan and mark.  I've posted a few times on this thread and I've received nothing but very nice compliments!  I still follow this thread closely, even when I'm not posting.  Let me say it's very inspiring to see the creative ideas that everyone has for their own layouts.  I love seeing the scenery and structures just as much as the trains.  Thanks to everyone for in my option the best thread on the forums!

Nick

*pic of my diesel shop with the new jib crane, and some welders working on a NS sd45-2.

Two Hudsons pulling an NYC limited and making up time.

 

Alan,

Thank you for the kind words.  I just think I should encourage those who make this a great forum!

I'll take vignettes however they come - railroad or not.  Toy train layouts have always features buildings, vehicles, etc., other than just trains, and that makes an important point to me: railroads were very very woven into the fabric of daily life, at least in the time periods I model.  So in my view vignettes near a RR track, or of a town on a RR, are very much about RRs, and their role in everyday life  . . . Basically thought, I like 'em regardless!

Ron - I love this video!  You have really captured the look and feel of that period.  I felt like I was at trackside as this impressive train sped by trying to make up time.  Very nice job!

 

Art

a photo of a scene I like very much. Experimented with wet roadways.

Chugman, thanks for the kind words.

 

Ron

And a successful experiment, I think.  This is very well done because it is not overdone.  What did you use for the water?  I use just a trace of Polyurethane over the flat latex I use for ground cover dried mud, and it adds a bit of darkness as if wet and some glisten as you can see in the photo below, but not much.  Not as good as yours though.  Real art, yours.

Lee and Scenery Artist,

I think both wet road scenes are outstanding.  Lee, yours reminds me of a fairly wet, muddy road with little or no gravel.  Scenery Artist, yours reminds me of a road with perhaps a little gravel.  Both reveal different colors of clay that I have seen in my travels.  Outstanding!

Thank you guys! First I created my roadway with medium then fine ballast and let dry. I pre moistened the ballasted roadway with water from a spray bottle, then I mixed raw umber latex paint into my mix of sculptamold and plaster of paris ("mud")troweled it on very thin (scraping really) with a flexible putty knife. The pre moistening with water allowed the "mud" to go on nice and smooth. Then I sprayed the entire road with water and gloss medium for a base wet look. While still moist, I sifted super fine dirt. Then taking a vehicle with rolling rubber wheels, I dipped it in soapy water and "drove" the vehicle down the road and into driveways and back up and drove forward and did all the things vehicles do, dipped the vehicle in soapy water again to wash off the dirt it picked up and repeated. I let this fan dry awhile. This gave it the wet look of mud in the tire ruts and "drying out" on the road surface look. Some areas where the "mud" was deep was perfect for deep tire ruts. I mixed a bit of water and gloss medium and painted it into the deep ruts for pooling water.

S.A.; fantastic looking road.

Stunningly real. In fact, I had to look more than once to discern if it were real or a model = artwork (!!!!!) It was the car that informed me (I've had several of that car) the scene was your artistry. Absolutely flawless , every single nano-inch, including the moist roadway (having been to hills and hollers in West Virginia, I feel I recognize such sites.) You have named yourself appropriately in the words of your avatar.

FrankM.

Yikes,

That is the best looking model road I have seen.

What fabulous work ! The entire scene is spectacular !

Yow, I have to try that on the Munoz Lines !!!

 

Scrappy

 

 

Outstanding!!

I caught this D&H local freight crew winding down their shift.  Just one more car to deliver before grabbing their caboose and wrapping things up for the day...

 

You know a muddy road is a great model when you look at it and say to yourself- "No way I would get out of that car there!"

 

SceneryArtist, thanks.  I too use the rolling-car way to make realistic ruts, but I have to try some of the other ideas you shared.  I appreciate it. 

 

Gentlemen,

 

This is my one and only Vignette:

 

Since my layout consists of nothing but High Desert Wilderness with absolutely nothing on it, this is the only thing that stands out...a Mountain Goat.

 

I'm sorry.....

 

Rip Track  (click to enlarge)

  

Well, I see more than a goat. from the cactus all the way up to the top tells a story. It's there we just have to read it.  : )

 

Thanks Marty, but I wasn't aware that there was a story within!

 

Rip Track

"One can get more than cold beer and hot food downtown...."

 

Alan

The sun sets as the Surfliner retires for the day.....

 

Alan

A lot of downtown morning traffic under the "EL"....

 

Alan

Busy at the oil filling station.....

 

Alan