The Back Door and The Signs, with special guest, AI

I felt bad for the back wall of the Candy Shop after talking it up in the previous post but not sharing an image.  So, I took a picture of the wall to show its concrete stoop and details as well as a couple close-up shots of the posters.  The little vent fan on the wall is from Vector Cut, sadly, now out of production.  The rest are metal castings of unknown origin.

Why wasn't this included in the kit? (and why isn't the door inset?)

You can still get coffee at the candy shop.  The little face is a period-accurate election poster.

The roof was stippled but painting that brick was a back-and-forth process that took forever.

But I'm burying the lead here...after a conversation with Jim at 30 Squares I decided to play around with AI to generate a sign.  I used Canva, as it was the first search result returned.  The process was super easy, turning text into an image.  Here's the prompt I used:

Rooftop Sign for a 1920s business called the "Lemon Drop Candy Shop" featuring a large lemon with leaves and the text "Lemon Drop Candy Shop" in a period appropriate typeface

Here are the results that I liked best:

WOW.  I had thought I'd get a graphic, not a photo-realistic image.  But boy am I glad I didn't get what I expected.  Novelty architecture really became popular in the 1920s and 30s and these signs are a nod to that style, perfect for my railroad's era.  It wouldn't be too hard to make a big lemon out of Milliput along with some stylized leaves.  The large panel means the text could be used on both sides for a ridge-line sign.  I've got some raised styrene letters, though I might search around for a different typeface for variety's sake.  

This is exciting.  Happy modeling, and thanks for reading.

 

An Old Sign Finds a New Home

The name and decorative flourish were stenciled on by my dad.

Well, check another unfinished task off the list.  I finally got around to hanging this sign.  It had been a gift from my dad to my grandfather and lived on the wall next to my grandfather's back door.  Now it lives on my garage, facing the back yard, where I'll see it whenever I go out there.  The other now-finished tasks in this photo are the removal of the unused satellite dish that came with the house and the addition of a guide wire for the Passion Vine growing just out of the frame to the left.  

Getting the garage "ceiling" repaired and the lights installed was like the tsunami hitting the continental shelf and beginning to rise.  There was progress happening before then but each step seemed to take enormous energy.  Since then I've been riding this wave of motivation and getting all sorts of things done, some of them hobby related.  The key has been following the passion whenever possible, choosing a task from a list of options.  None of the steps are particularly difficult on their own but each one paves the way for the next and soon the progress becomes tangible, visible, real.  Momentum is a powerful force.

This one is special.