Operation Sucker Punch!

Taking some time off work really paid off; as if I didn’t, I wouldn’t have been able to finish the project within the confines of the AX deadline. Well, I think I could have, but it would have really been pushing things. From the last update, I started attaching the completed pieces of the project to the base. The silos and pipe works were glued onto the base. The tower light was attached and glued into position. The one building was also glued onto the base. Once these pieces were in place, I taped off some border areas and using some elmer’s white glue thinned down slightly with water; painted the watered down glue and then carefully sprinkled some colored ballasts (model train store scenics stuff) The stuff is great for replicating gravel and comes in a variety of colors. The damaged base area was painted with the diluted white glue and more gravel was applied. Once the glue completely dries; a few hours as the stuff dries pretty quickly (I let it sit for at least 8 hours as I’m paranoid). I did an enamel wash with a few colors to give a some dimension to the gravel. I also dropped in some more diluted white glue and added some yellow turf as a weedy undergrowth.

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After a year long break, returning to the Water Front

Motivation, inspiration and other ation-esque terms sometime fades away as a project progresses for a host of reasons. This project was chugging along last year and just stopped cold. It sat on my workbench and just occupied the space for a good while before I came to the realization that I did not want to work on it. I boxed it up and shelved this for a little over a year. I recently revisited a 7 year shelved kit that has since been shelved to get some quicker little projects completed. This happens. Interests wanes and sometimes, it is best to just put something away in hopes that someday, the interest returns and the project gets completed.

The first set of pictures was where I last left off. I had started getting the main base piece together. I had cut a hole out, glued some mesh in place. The idea here is to use a picture of some GMs I had previsouly built, and place the picture under the base to create an illusion that there is an underground element to the base. The wood base is built up with some balsa wood sides. This was about where I stopped last year; I had some work on various pieces and there was no mental execution plan for the project.

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