When I say rank, I mean taxi rank.

Just a quick update to show the new paving outside the station.  The station was placed over the pavement sheets and the outline  pencilled on. Once everything was cut out it was carefully tweaked and adjusted to get a good fit around the station. 

I started by painting the paving with a concrete coloured acrylic, which I thought too light and added Lifecolour dirty black. This seemed a better colour so I brushed it with charcoal coloured weathering powders to bring out the paving stones. This almost turned out to be a disaster though, as contrary to previous experiences with weathering powders it stuck to the pavement like you know what to a shovel. Perhaps the paint was still slightly tacky. I wiped most of the powder from the flat surfaces with a damp tissue and dry brushed with the original concrete paint to highlight everything. Finally a coat of Testors matt varnish was added to seal everything in. Testors is the best matt varnish you can use but rumour has it that it is no longer available either here or in the States where it is manufactured.

So to recap, I started with a colour I didn't think looked right, then after repainting added powders that made it way too dark, which then turned out great after wiping down and dry brushing. Moral of the story is; persevere. We often read magazines where the experts seem to know exactly what colours to use and they probably do but that's only after years of experience getting it wrong and experimenting. Don't be frightened of having a go. 

Railway Figures

Being a wargamer the thing that always catches my eye are the figures. If done correctly I feel they really set the scene and period of the layout. Now while there is nothing wrong with prepainted figures, there are some that are so dreadfull they make me wince, especially if stuck on thick peices of clear plastic. I was also surprised when I recently went to the finescale show in Stoke Mandeville where there were two superb layouts not a living sole on them. 

The majority of figures used on my railway are from Dart Castings. These are unpainted white metal figures which are very well proportioned anatomically and although they do a some modern era figures a large part of the range is suitable for the 1920's to 60's, which includes the period that I am modelling. 

All the figures are painted in acrylics as are most war games figures. Why acrylics? Two reasons, firstly acrylics are water based and generally odourless. I use Vallejo, Inscribe, Life Colour, Games Workshop and others. Secondly they dry quickly. You can paint a colour on a figure and generally by the time you have washed your brush out open your next colour you can paint over the top. This means you can mix a base colour with a lighter colour and highlight almost straight away. I have the excellent DVD by Geoff Taylor on how to scratch build buildings but when he tells you to paint the motar colour in enamels and set it aside for 24 hours I find myself asking why would you want to use such a slow drying medium for this purpose when it has no particular advantages over acrylics. I can paint the mortar colour and be dry brushing on the brick colour within an half an hour. Enamels do have their place though, they give a hard and smooth finish and will always be my first choice for a loco if the colour is available.

I hope you like the photos of my figures. More will be added in time for the layouts next outing, which will be the Tolworth Showtrain exhibition in November. This will be the layouts last outing for a while as I want to concentrate on scratch building the goods shed and other structures before it goes out on display again.