Wednesday, November 27, 2013

Project Update: K.W.Murphy Engineering Works aka Flour Mill by Laser Art

I have big plans for long Thanksgiving weekend. One of them is to finish this project. I am quite close. Another 2 or 3 hours and I am done. I am shooting for FSMsque look. One component to achieve that is to use several different roofing materials. I used tarpaper that was included in the kit. It is too thick but when I used it on Marilyn's I got nice cracking effect. I am hoping to achieve it here as well. Also I used some leftover Campbell shingles from Houligan's Alley kit on part of the roof. Little loading add-on is covered with corrugated metal like paper I bought at Michael's. It looks a little shallower than Campbell like but for the price I paid it may be an excellent alternative. This paper has flat bottom so it is good in places where it isn't visible. Most of the time it is the case anyway.
When building loading add-on I realized that I had made one of the "painted" signs too big and placed too low. I could have soaked it with water and pealed away. That would have produced nice ghost sign but that isn't what I am after. I will cover area with mounted on plywood and framed sign instead.



Monday, November 18, 2013

Project Update: Houligan's Alley by FSM

I work on models in two week cycles. I work for three nights in a row, then I have two off followed by three nights of modeling and then I have a break for six days. There is nothing worse than something going wrong right before that long break. It happened to me about 10 days ago. I was installing power lines using nylon thread but things didn't go well. Nylon isn't easy to shape, everything got tangled up. I ripped all power lines off and decided have my diorama without them. George Sellios himself mentions in the instructions that he doesn't install power lines. Why would I do it? It was too hard to accept the defeat though. That kept me bugging during long break and after it was over I went in with the new plan. This time I used regular thread from the kit and I succeeded.
With this behind and Jordan vehicles built the rest was a piece of cake. I can proudly say now that I have completed my first FSM kit.
What is waiting for me in post Houligan's Alley era? I would really like to finish few older projects that are laying around in various stages of completion and collecting dust. I have few kits that I have prepared for painting and assembling during few extra hours of modeling I came up with this fall. I may throw these new kits into a mix. Perhaps I may do another FSM kit. Although Skinner's Row is my all time favorite I don't think I want to do anything of that caliber at the moment.