Blitz Modeling

Your attachment looks great. I just wish my layout comes out half as good. But then I just finished painting the walls of the layout room. Any hints for putting in clouds that look real?

Click the image button ...

Marty:

If you want the image to actually display, click the image button in the edit button panel header ... it's a yellow button with a mountain and a moon on it.

Once you click the button, then click "browse server" ... and the server browse window will come up.

At the top of the server window is a link called upload - click it. You will be able to browse your local computer for an image - once you find your image, select it and click upload.

A few moments later, your image will be uploaded and added to the server browser list. Click send to FCKeditor and you will return to the image window. Click OK and your image will be pasted into your post at the location of your cursor.

This site always does a float left of your image - which means as long as your image is less than 700 pixels wide, the text you type will float to the right of your image. This looks best when your image is 500 pixels wide or less. If your image approaches 600 pixels, the text column gets so narrow it just looks ugly.

Once you've pasted in an image with the above approach, you can also click on an image and resize it just by dragging the handles on the image. As long as the resize isn't too dramatic, resizing the image with the handles is a good way to get an image to fit on the page like you want.

Looking forward to more!

Since I am also modeling Northern New England in N scale.. I am really looking forward to the articles and book. It sounds like there will be a lot in there I can use.

The mill is very reminiscent of what I see around me every day.. for instance in Dover, NH where I work the Cocheco river passes under the old mill passing over some dramatic rocky falls. Here are some pics I found of it. They are not mine so I dont want to paste them in directly.

http://flickr.com/photos/lukejanela/47223929/

http://www.flickr.com/photos/erik_swenson/2247754085/

This is the second part of the mill..

http://www.city-data.com/picfilesc/picc15116.php

I will replace these with my own images when I get a chance.. what makes this mill so model-genic, besides the water way and tower.. is that you can have a river terminate behind the layout by passing under the arch under the mill.. a great prototype for handling making a river dissapear..

Chris

Marty, Your busy, I'll do it

Marty, Your busy, I'll do it for you...

Marc  (I have nothing to do with it at all, just helping post an image)

Thanks Joe,

Got the idea now.

I think one of the issues I'm having now is on this end (I'm at work) - I'm getting a message telling me I can't upload from this location.

Will try later at home to make sure I've got this down.

Marty

Thanks!

Appreciate the assistance .  . . you want to make trees????

+

Sure,, Send em up North. I'll make yours if you make mine.

Marc

Mill looks good

 Marty,

The mill looks good set along the river. I am looking forward to seeing the complete scene.  Marty's  mill was kitbashed from two Alkem Scale Models N Scale mill kits.

This is a new kit I have scheduled to come out later this year (once I finish my own book project too).  It uses a novel technique for prepainted bricks, hopefully taking most of the work out of that difficult chore. 

 It is based on an actual water powered mill in Charlottesville, VA, (shown at the left) but is similar to many brick mills around the US.

This is a  photo of the prototype kit. It is pretty close to the expected final product.

Our initial plan is to produce it in N Scale first. An HO scale version may follow later.

That's a N scale kit???? It

That's a N scale kit????

It looks better than some HO kits...

Charlie

I'm so happy with the way this scene

is turning out that I may well recreate it on the HO version of the Southern New England. I think when do that I'll leave enough room for the one-story building and the sluice gates - as well as a rail siding.

Bernie, scene is coming along well, although I'm adding some more "big rocks" to the river to they'll show up from a lower angle. I went with a concrete foundation wall since I didn't have enough of the stone walls to work and I really, really need to get this thing done.

Marty

Nice

I wonder if the rounded tower roof is particular to that region? Up here all the ones I have seen are more of a squared off look "castle" look.

Looks like a great kit. What material are the walls made of?

Chris

wall material

The wall material is still under development. I am leaning one way, but haven't made a final decision yet.

cool web site

 That flick site on old textile mills is very cool. Thanks for providing the link.

tower turrets

 Chris,

I have studied many different mills in the development of this kit. The rounded tower was not uncommon in New England.  Here are some example tower types.
 

Colonial (bell) type cupolas were common in New England in the pre-railroad era.  

About the time railroads developed other styles became common. This crenelated tower was built in 1820 in North Carolina.

This tower at Bordens Mill, MA was built at the end of the 19th century when big rail served mills became popular.

This photo of the Bay State Mills in Rhode Island shows two styles of towers.

In the kit, the rounded tower will be a resin cast part, even though the prototype part was make using laser cut parts and epoxy putty, which is a great scratch building material in case you have never tried it.

It would be a simple kit bash to add a flat tower top, or a hipped roof. In fact, now that I think about it, I may include hipped roof parts in the kit to allow the option. 

Mill looks good

How much of a footprint does it use in N-Scale? I may have a perfect location for it on my layout as there will be a 3 inche wide gap along the back wall which I plan to make into a stream of some sort.

Irv

Mill dimensions

 Irv,

I hesitate to give dimensions, as they are liable to change. With that caveat, the main building with tower is 7.4 by 4.5 inches. The whole complex is 4.5 by 11.5 inches.

Here is another view from the tower side.

Interesting..

Interesting stuff. It is consistent with what I see around me. I am going to have to make sure I get some more pics of some of the mills around here. I found some old drawings of the Cocheco mill on the http://www.davidrumsey.com  website that seemed to show the original mill building had some kind of low peaked roof on the tower just like the Borden Mill picture above.

Someday.. when I have more space, modeling skill, and money.. it would be tremendously fun to do a late 19th century New England railroad.

I think including options to customize the tower, or other features of the mill, would be really great.

Chris

Clouds?

Check this out: http://www.modelrailroadinguniversity.com/productstencils.html 

I have used these stencils for years and they look better than any hand painted clouds.

 That is an amazing kit,

That is an amazing kit, looks like the prototype, even with the white background!

This thing is EATING trees

 Bernie told me there was too much "negative space" on the river bank opposite the mill. "Add a few more trees" he suggests - so, I did. 

Here's the view before adding the trees (the white boxes are stand-ins for the mill at this point). (I painted those U25s for an MR Paint Shop article a long time ago. I could never bring myself to part with them, in fact they're the only Paint Shop models I did that I still have.  

 Here's a view of the scene

Here's a view of the scene from a slightly lower angle - I'm zeroing in on the cover shot at this point. The engine is a MEC GP38 that obviously needs some weathering - that yellow "blows out" really easily in the photos unless its toned down a little. 

This time the mill is in place. As an aside, the lower angle makes for a far more dramatic an interesting picture. But there's still something missing - the mill building and train aren't "framed." 

"Framing" the image when you model New England means "add more trees." I think this 4 x 8 N scale layout has at least 400 trees on it at this point - all but the few conifers scattered here and there are made from Super Trees by Scenic Express. 

Here's the same shot (engine still needs some weathering) with the additional trees - now we're getting somewhere.  I want to create the look of the mill building along the river poking up through the trees - that's what you see in a lot of older New England mill towns.  I think I'm getting there at this point. But if I plant anymore trees (I made another 60 or so this morning(!)) I won't be able to see the tracks. Come to think of it, that's what New England railroading is like today - tracks cutting their way through a veritable "tunnel" of trees. 

Nice pics!

Nice Pics! GP-38 MEC 261 and 263 are among the handfull of locomotives I actually own, its cool to see one in a nice setting. Your scaring me with the trees though! Are those done using the Scenic Express "Super Trees"?

I completely agree about the tunnel of trees being a New England railroad feature, and am going to try to create a scene like that on one spot of my layout where the locmotive will only be clearly visible head on down the ROW between the trees.

Chris

It's frightening to think of

It's frightening to think of what this would look like with proper lighting and an appropriate backdrop (let alone if you took it outside!).

You're lucky though, you might be needing to produce about 3,000 douglas firs if this was in the Pacific NW and super trees don't work for them...

Charlie

Sky, you asked for Sky???

Yes, it certainly helps to drag out the additional lights -- some computer-enhanced sky doesn't hurt either!