3D birds flying over model rivers
1.Google a bird in flight (or use your own photo)
2.Reduce size (on a software photo program)
3.“Fly” your bird over the river by attaching it (on its bottom) to the river (or from the bank) with an appropriate length of very thin wire or acetate
The wire would probably be more noticeable than the bird itself.
Steve S
I suspect it would.
As a modeling exercise, does anyone know of a way to stiffen a short length of monofilament fishing line?
Something else that works for a bird in flight, I had a very fine cobweb that went from one of the light fixtures above my layout, to the corner of my backdrop. You actually couldn’t see the single string cob web. One morning, I noticed a tiny fly stuck on it. Well, it looked so real, I just left it for a few days. My son came down to the train room one day, and started laughing, telling me that my bird in flight idea looked so real…then he noticed what it really was…his reaction was “OMG dad, I thought that was something you modeled!” “Sorry” I said as I laughed, " I can’t take credit for that, thank the spider".
Yes, while doing some layout maintenance, I vacuumed up the cobweb, and the fly. (along with a few more I noticed while on the step ladder!)
Mike.
EDIT: Oh, and the fishing line, try holding each end with a pliers, and stretching it. Don’t know about fishing line, but it works with wire.
Flight denotes movement. It doesn’t matter if the support system was completely invisible, if the bird in flight isn’t moving it isn’t going to look real.
Standing above my layout which is 36 inches high and me at 6 feet in height, should I even be able to see birds in HO scale?
Rich
Probably not, unless they were some of the larger raptors. But that never stopped people from putting sitting pigeons on the roofs of structures, complete with the ‘evidence’ that they had been sitting there a while.
–Randy
Are we running a railroad or an aviary? [(-D]
Rich
Not quite in flight, this seagull is landing on a rock in Moose Bay.
I used a piece of green floral wire to suspend this Preiser hawk above a tree.
Hi All
Pardon me for asking
But why would you want static in motion figures on a model railway?
When with a bit of care and careful selection of static items and choice of figures that are not moving
a good impression of there being life is possible.
The bike leaning on the switch tower stairs, the passenger reading the paper the senior couple standing looking in the store windows the chess or card players siting out side the shed the dog laying in the yard waiting to ambush the postie etc.
Admittedly it can get a bit expensive finding the right figures when there is only one or two each in the packs that are sold.
But with figures you can work on less is more with careful placement of the right ones.
regards John
Everything that’s not a train is static anyhow. Unless they’ve invented moving trees.
For the same reason you might put scale cars and trucks on scale roads. On most layouts they don’t move either.
Most of us won’t bat an eye at scale figures of “walking” humans, or dogs, or deer. Why should we look differently at “flying” birds?
In this shot, you can just about see the wire holding the seagull in flight, but after the train has gone by, the wire is undetectable.
here is another gull flying in to land on the rock on the lower left. you can’t see the wire here. We all know the bird will never land, but it makes a great photo.
Sam
That would be the lower right. Sorry about that.
Sam
I can’t see my conductor when he walks the train or throws a switch, so why would I worry about a bird that isn’t moving?
John,
Not to start an argument, but the passenger reading, and the poor senior couple,looking in the window and the board game players, playing a never ending game of chess etc.
O.M.G. Those poor folks will be there for , days or weeks, or even years. Unless you want to move them around every few minutes.
just saying.
Sam
This is why I don’t have birds on my layout…
Sam, we’ve both got out-of-focus mermaids in our seagull pictures. I’ll leave it at that and let everyone else go find them.
Like Sasquatch and Nessie, you can never get a good photo of them, can you?
Getting back to the original post. you can use a very fiine music or piano wire and paint it flat black. we used this back in the 70’s at a model shop I worked at in New York. We build dioramas for large corporations or govrenment agencies and occasionally had to suspend small items in mid air. It worked quite well, depending on how close the viewer was. The problem with seagulls in HO is that they are ususally very large birds! Go for it thought, I plan to do the same thing on my layout. Might even mount a small airplane coming out of the background!
-Bob
Hi Sam
I think the raven has been sitting on the church roof that long the roofer must have nailed the poor thing
to the slates
Not on the current layout for obvious reasons, but the owl must have been sitting in the cannon ball hole in the watch tower since the English civil war may be a bit longer
Capt. Mainwaring has been waiting two years for the train
I think the worker sleeping in the freight shed stole snow whites apple he has been there that long.[;)]
The heron still hasn’t seen a frog or small fish in the stream.[:O]
I don’t think any one can drive either, those cars have been parked at the side of the road that long they probably will not start.
As you can see I have this anti thing about static figures or other things that look like or are positioned where they should be moving, and look for other ways to suggest line side life
Thanks for reminding me I need to order another Atlas shed with checkers players the last one has finally reached the point it needs replacing. or renovating.
regards John