Pasture gets Another Background

Something bugged me when I posted that photo on the weekend of the four different backgrounds for the pasture: why had the barn turned out so much smaller than the aluminum version? As I thought about it, I realized the fence in the foreground had needed a lot of shaping to match the ground profile. […]

Pasture background cut out

Thanks to Rob Kirkham for pointing out that I never published this post on the weekend, and then referred to it on Monday evening. With the drawing matching the ground as modelled, I broke it into pieces so it would fit on the laser. The pieces follow the natural edges in the final scene, so […]

Dogs and Tennis Balls and Math

In Lance Mindheim’s post this week about simple layouts, he likens himself to a dog with a tennis ball. He’s happy to repeat the same moves time and again, much like the professionals. But what if you’re not like a dog chasing a tennis ball? How much complexity does it take so that you will […]

Full extension slides for quality of life

I saved some money when I built my modelling desk by using some drawer slides I’d found at ReStore. While they were the right length, they were partial extension or regular or whatever the opposite of “full extension” is. With the two-inch overhang of the desktop to facilitate clamping, these slides wound up hiding the […]

The Devil’s in the Details

I wasn’t deliberately putting off the final shaping of the pasture backdrop. At least I’m pretty sure I wasn’t. I knew it would be some work, and probably a little risky too when it came to adding all the details in the foreground trees. But, the rough shape took only an hour or two; how […]

The Stars of the Show

A couple of weeks ago, Trevor Marshall mentioned Jonathan Jones’s intriguing article in the 2023 issue of Model Railroad Planning, specifically Mr. Jones’s* assertion that if everything is important, then nothing is important. I’ve been wanting to write about this article since it came out, as it is the most innovative thing I’ve read in […]