This is a great Idea and it made me start thinking! You could do the same thing for office buildings if you can take some photos of office interiors and make small shadow boxes for each window where you can get the illusion of a office desk and file cabinets and a closed interior door and maybe actually set up one or two of the rooms with a person setting at a desk by the window. Charlie this quick interior Idea could lend itself to some great inexpensive interiors.

I have always just used black card stock to give buildings a darkened interior look and some times a grain of wheat in a room or two. The black card stock made it so you can't see through the floors and Isolate the bulbs but your Idea is alot better faster and even more realistic and I'm going to use it Thanks.

Dan

Like Dan says, it's a great idea and anyone can do it.  I'm filing this idea away for future use when I am ready to detail buildings.

Great information and timely!  I'm going through "stage two" on my structures in that I'm going to be adding lighting and interiors.  I left the roofs removeable and many of my buildings are removable so I'll definately be using the information in this article.  Good stuff- thanks!

Rick

Using a computer, the internet and photo software creates endless possibilities for modelling. A long time ago an article in Model Railroader, the author used his computer to print out number boards for his locomotives. Ever since I have never decaled numbers on a loco. Oh the frustation of keeping all numbers straight, etc all but vanished. I have made and printed out street signs that actually name the proper streets being modelled, road signs by the dozens, licence plates and the  latest were some freight doors of a factory. I had to make some adjutsments to a backdrop building that was being used as a customer on the railroad, but the adjustment was so tight that 3D flat doors were too thick to allow for the rolling stock to be spotted! Space is always at a premium. I did some searching on freight doors on google, and there you have it, photo perfect 2D doors that are about .003" thick, which is the print paper, glued on the building. There have been some neat articles in MRH on using photos for backdrops and this article just shows another possibility. Thanks. 

Steve     

Great idea, now if I can find some pictures of HO-sized crates that I can print. Any ideas?

They don't have to be HO. They can be any size, you just scale them to HO size before printing them.

Charlie

 Okay, just like MR did with John Allen back in the 50's, you may eventually start getting comments like "Too much Charlie Comstock!".

Just like MR did back then, please IGNORE such comments: Charlie's articles are all outstanding!!

More Fithers, less Comstock.