Due to the small size of my train layout I will be modifying my station slightly: I am removing the freight and baggage area. I studied this modification by tracing over the plans, elevations and photos of Rich Cobb's model. It is much shorter, but it still is balanced and has the feel of a small town station.
As I mentioned in previous posts, I have sketched the Pasadena Train Station for years. Many years ago I would stop by in the evenings with my boys and wait for the evening westbound Amtrak to arrive. It is a beautiful station. These photos were taken before the station was relocated, and refurbished. The bottom two images are of a beautiful HO scale model built by Rich Cobb which is currently at the Whistle Stop train store in Pasadena.
The previous exercise was a prototype; something to practice on and get ready for the real model.
The final base is an Ampersand gessoe'd hardboard panel onto which I sprayed a few coats of RustOleum grey primer. The primer left a nice rough texture that I will eventually add hardscape lines and landscape areas to. I cut out a profile board of the floor plan and attached it to the baseboard with carpenter's glue.
My new method for the walls consists of transferring the elevations to the board by means of a scratch awl - putting tiny pricks through the drawing at the corners and then drawing the plan onto cold press illustration board with an 0.5mm pencil. I then added a light wash of raw sienna to warm up the wall color and to give it some texture. After that had dried I painted the window and door areas with colbalt turquoise light and finished with a dark mixture of ultramarine blue and burnt umber to suggest windows. I will add some finishing touches with pastel after the model is complete.
The walls were glued to the base and the roof was added, which I made by ruling parallel lines 1/16" apart and doing a wash of burnt sienna and cadmium red. I added a little off-white pastel to the roof and sprayed some workable fixative to deaden the brightness and to look more like a tile roof.
My goal in this exercise is not to do a typical model railroad building that is indistinguishable from the real thing, but rather to build a scale model much like an architect would to present his concept to a client. I am also fascinated by British railway modelers who make beautiful structure models out of card stock.
Here is a series of quick studies I did the other day of a park I was visiting. They were drawn with a Sanford Uniball pen and painted later in the studio with watercolor. All work was done in my Aquabee Super Deluxe sketchbook.
I have always loved scale models and model trains. Over the years I have planned and built a few, and I am now in the process of building another one. I am taking a short break from painting to work on it. Well, sort of.
Here are a few random images from some previous projects, and my latest one. The top photo is of a scale model of a scale model of a Z- Scale layout I designed a while ago. I made the mountains from clay, and the buildings from scraps of basswood. I sprinkled some ground foam to suggest grass and used pipe cleaners for trees. I mounted the whole thing on a piece of 5" x 7" tempered hard board.
I made a small diorama for my brother a few years ago to display an N-Scale coal train model I had given him. This image is a close up of it, with a passenger car to show context.
The sketch above is for a small 13" x 22" Z-Scale layout I am working on. It will have a European theme. Just below that is an in-progress shot at my work bench.
Which brings me to my current project: a portable N-Scale layout symbolically representing Los Angeles. It will have Amtrak, Metrolink and BNSF intermodal freight traffic.
A centerpiece of this layout will be the Pasadena Train Station which I have painted and sketched for many years. It is now a nice restaurant in the middle of a mixed-use development but on my layout it will be an active working passenger station serving Amtrak's Southwest Chief and Sunset Limited trains.
These images show my practice model. I used mat board, ink, and colored pencil, and mounted everything to a piece of bookbinder's chipboard
