Woods Furniture

This is a DPM "Gold" kit, tres' expensive, but I got it for-cheap about 8 years ago (?) and just haven't done anything with it because there are just SO MANY PIECES (see for yourself: here are the instructions). I decided that I was brave enough and skilled enough now through practicing on the smaller kits to tackle this big one. One thing that especially helped was finding a brick-mortar coloring technique that worked for me: slathering on enough white-ish paint to pretty much cover one small section at a time (this helps you know the mortar lines are filled), then wiping off the brick surface with a paper tissue. The tissue removes the paint on the face of the brick, but leaves the paint in between, where it's supposed to go. Is it prefect? Nope. Is it good enough? Yup. Is it better than any of my previous attempts? Absolutely! The white paint also helps to tone-down some of the redness of the brick as well, which isn't a bad thing.

The picture on the box is of the kit painted a yellowish brick color; such a color doesn't really exist in Maine, where red brick is the norm, so I left the red kit pieces alone and simply filled the mortar lines in with the white acrylic paint.

It's nowhere near completion, but here are some pictures from this weekend as I assembled it.

Assembled each wall from multiple pieces, then assembled the walls together.

The roofs are up.

 Before painting

During painting (see the contrast)

 Mostly painted

 Left one bay open, to put in a small interior scene (forklift, boxes, people, etc)

Not bad eh?

Working on the dock

The biggest "catch" to all this is that I bought the kit back when I had envisioned a larger layout, I honestly don't know if I have room on the current layout for this monster.

The Robber Barons Pub

Also known as DPM Kit "Bruce's Bakery."

Up Next: Char's Soda Shoppe! What will I rename it? What kind of business? Hmm.....

Kathleen's World-Famous Bookstore

You might recognize this one as the Crestone Credit Union, another DPM kit.

Taylor Pharmacy

This is another that I've had for ages, but never quite completed. I have tried, on numerous occassions, hence why it may look a little battle-worn. I'm hoping that with some new paint, details, and add-ons, that no one will recognize it's shortcomings from previous failed experiments.

I've kept it a pharmacy, as a DPM "Corner Apothecary" kit. This time, instead of just window treatments, I've printed and installed a rudimentary interior to the inside walls so that you can look through the windows, giving it all a bit of depth. I may add a floor with a couple of people shopping inside to help the illusion.

New Building

After a significant amount of time "away" from the hobby, I'm trying to dabble a little more on weekends, and days I have off.

Utilizing a three day weekend, I decided to do some work on a building that has gone unassembled for over a decade. You may recognize it as the "Roadkill Cafe" by DPM.

One of the brilliant ideas making it possible was a suggestion to use Lego blocks to assemble the corners. I've always had an issue with keeping the corners square, and now I don't!

I also went online, downloaded some pictures, and used them to populate the windows of the building. The success of this makes me think that I might perhaps use printouts and photos of more than just windows to model things accurately: such as taking pictures of roadways and "printing" my roads (I've never had any luck with other techniques, so it's worthwhile to try something radically different).