Kitbashing Speedy Andrew's

This is the second installment of my "how-I-did-it" articles chronicling the development of my NMRBO22 entry diorama.  For part one, see the previous post on how I made a brick street with track for a horse-drawn streetcar.  In this post I'll show progress pictures and discuss my thinking behind turning an AHM "Speedy Andrew's Repair Shop" into my "Strickland's Speedy Service and Souvenirs".  For some interesting history on the original structure, and other fun kitbashing ideas using these kits, see JD Lowe's 30 Squares blog and search for "speedy" or just click the link.

In the photo above you can see some of the kit parts laid out alongside my mock-up and a few other parts I had in mind to use.  The mock-up was made by photocopying the kit walls and gluing them to cardstock.  In the end I didn't use the brick card or the pre-printed shingles but did use the metal doors and shutters.

Here are the original kit parts.  I like to use as many of the walls as possible, even if they don't make it as walls.  Not pictured is the wood textured "ramp" you were to place at the garage entrance; that part became the two signs over the drive-though bay on my model.  Speaking of which, that was the element that made my redesign click.  That big false-front entrance wall is the dead giveaway for the kit origins.  I had to do something to disguise that, so I re-imagined it as a sign above two pillars, using cut-offs from the walls to add bulk.  The "interior" wall from the kit became the drive through ceiling.

Another trick I used to hide the kit's origins was to eliminate the "L" shape of the building and reorient the main entrance in relation to the big sign.  The weakest elements of the kit, in my opinion, are the windows and doors.  I subbed two metal doors (either Dyna Models or maybe Sequoia, I can't be sure) and added Tichy shutters to the windows.  On this wall I shifted one window a bit towards the door so they'd be symmetrical and used the shutter to hide the gap that created.  The little bump-out at the back of the building is the sort of thing that just happens organically during kitbashing.  Once the main building is set, those remaining pieces you haven't used just cry out to be used somehow!

And here's the finished structure, showing the final elements I used to hide the kit's origins - the standing seam metal roof in place of the cast shingles and the signage.  DISTRACTION!  If I'd only used the main sign with the lovely arch in the top it might have been too easy to say "oh, that's that old AHM kit I've seen before".   The two signs on the sides perpendicular to the main sign, centered as they are over the drive-through, create a sense of weight and bring balance to the structure over and against the main building with its side-entrance and porch.  

The building in situ, with a mini-scene to tell the story.  Strickland stands on the porch welcoming the dapper gent, who has just pulled up in his brand new 1914 Austro Daimler 18/32 Cabrio.  Jeb and the kid look on, wondering just how much this man will buy.  No doubt they have a hundred other questions they'd love to ask him.  If he stays long enough maybe they'll get to.  He's just the sort of tourist they've been seeing more frequently ever since the county paved Orange Avenue, opening their part of central Florida to the rest of the state, and beyond.

The other side of the building, with more signs.  The brick paper I did use came from Walthers - from the middle of the last century.  It was the right balance of red, orange and gold to suit the colors I had in mind for this building.  The large signs were created in Gimp, the ads are from JL Innovative and other sources.  The smudge pots don't look too dirty or rusty because they're new.  They're resin castings from California Model Company and are the right style for the period.  So too the gas pump - it came with the kit, and is actually a pretty close match for the ones used in the 19-teens.  The more common glass-top pumps didn't become popular until the 20s and 30s.  

Leave any questions or comments down below, and thanks for reading.

 

 

Pinto Heights

     Okay, so 'heights' isn't exactly the best descriptive word I could use for the little hillside above the tracks, but it'll do for now.  As part of the Railroad Line forum's 'choices' challenge to build something off the shelf, (and my own resolution to finish more projects than I start) I selected one of my un-built structures from my 'digital shelf'.  A couple years ago I bought and downloaded the Clever Models Company House just for this location (the dark gray building with the pinkish add-on in the center-right of the photo above).

     Pinto is a sort-of company town.  The mill isn't in Pinto, but rather a few miles up the Big Tujunga Lumber Company interchange which connects to the Ocali Creek at Pinto.  The Clever Models company house comes with several 'textures' from which to choose; various colors of Insulbrick, or clapboard, different shingles or rolled roofing, and even a variety of brick colors for the foundation.  This means I can make a few slightly different houses, all of the same basic design.  OR, I could just print multiple copies of the textures I like and mass produce one style.  I haven't decided which way I'll go, but I'm leaning toward different colored homes.
     The company houses will also appear on the backdrop.  Another nice thing about paper models, besides the ability to print multiple copies, is that I can reduce them a slight bit and print up a smaller structure to force the perspective.  These smaller copies will be false fronts with minimal detail, built as 3-d flats set right in front of the backdrop.

     But the company houses aren't the only structures in Pinto Heights.  I have also mocked up the Classic Miniatures Queen Anne house (where the foreman lives, on the left in the above photo) and the AHM 'Speedy Andrew's' (aka Ma's Place) as a home, not a business (sorry Mr. Moore).  For a while I tried putting the latter across the way from the former, but it just didn't look right.  But I'm getting ahead of myself.  For a while there was no road across the tracks.  Once I nixed the idea of a loading platform in the fork of the siding (where the road now runs near the freight house) then putting in the road was easy.

     Once the road was in place, and I had shifted structures around on blocks for a while, I remembered the old photo of the church at Caples, WV.  Now that prominent corner across from the Queen Anne cottage will have a church - mocked up for now using an older building I had stashed away.  That stone church may end up as a middle background structure in Watson, someday.  Caples church was wood with lovely gothic arched windows.  If I build this structure this year, I'll need to scratchbuild those windows.
     The final 'structure' for Pinto is actually another old photo I found.  It will live where the yellow false-front is standing in at the end of the street.  I spent a little time recently learning how to colorize black & white photos using Gimp, a free photo editing software.  What fun that is!  Now I can adapt just about any structure I find on Shorpy or elsewhere, to use as a backdrop image.  There are a few other structures, cut from magazines or calendars, and even a few of my own pictures, that I will use on the backdrop.
     Hopefully these photos give you, dear reader, an idea of what I have planned for Pinto.  There is one more foreground structure to mock-up, and that will be the subject of a future post.  The current backdrop images are merely stand-ins to give me an idea of what I'll paint there.  I will be detailing the build of the company house on the Railroad Line thread linked above, and who knows when I'll get to any of the other structures.  For now the mock-ups and stand-ins are doing a good job.