Does anyone know how long George’s spectauclar FSM took from the start to where he is on it right now? This layout just blows my mind. Such an inspiration. Whenever I hit a roadblock with my modeling, I just look at pictures of his layout and I’m recharged in 30 seconds. What a tallented modeler.
The only problem is, with the speed (or lack thereof) that I take on my structure building, I would be roughly 150 years old by the time I achieved half of the detail & realism that he has. Did he do it alone or did he have assistance from other tallented modelers? Just wondering.
Looking closely at a picture of a small one square foot area on his layout, at the level of detail, at all the STUFF… like he has more rusty barrells in one little spot than I have on my entire layout… I couldn’t do it if I had 5 lifetimes.
PJ - As I recall, George started the F&SM in the early 1980’s, perhaps 83, or 84. He spends 9-10 months a year developing his latest craftsman kit and then marketing it, thus leaving around 2-3 months open annually for him to work hard on his layout. He has indicated that he often spent 12+ hours a day in that endeavor early on.
From what I’ve been told, George has done nearly all the work on the F&SM himself. I suppose if one is truly industrious about building a layout it is possible to accomplish what George has done in a decade, or two, but you gotta really want it! [;)]
In recent years he has gone back and actually removed some of the detail from the earlier sections to make it look less cluttered. This was mentioned in the last article on the F&SM.
In absolutely no way intended as criticism, but strictly as an observation, I would point out that George’s “style” of modeling is what is generally regarded today as “caricature”, as opposed to a truly realistic and accurate approach. Scenes are purposely over-detailed and over-weathered in an exaggeration of real world situations and appearances to create a particular feeling, or response, in the viewer. George openly admits his modeling style has always been heavily influenced by the work of John Allen…who, not surprisingly, was also a “caricature-style” modeler in an era before individual modeling styles really had become well defined.
I will second that, I have the highest respect for George and his talent, but it is not the kind of modeling I want to do. My comment has often been “even the Depression was not that depressing”.
I have seen some large and very nice layouts come together in a decade or less, but usually with help, sometimes lots of it. What George has done is a credit to his skills and willingness to “put in the time”.
I have to agree with John and Sheldon. What George does is pretty amazing but not necessarily always “realistic”.
Unless you are modeling a ghost town, not all buildings and structures need to be or should look rundown. Even in the worst of times, folks do paint their houses and tidy up their property. With that said, I can still look at, appreciate, and learn from what George Sellios has done on his layout.
And, Randy is correct. George has removed some things from his layout; primarily for the purpose of making it more operationally-friendly.
A very good friend of mine has a layout with a similar scenic flavor to Georges work, but with a better balance of “believable” in with the “caricature” style. I often tell him he does the a better job than Sellios or John Allen. Of course he is too modest to believe that, but his structures are superb and they don’t look like they are all falling down.
As a Residential Designer in real life, it’s hard for me to see that much neglect. And i like to think of my model world as a place with a little more “hope” and “pride of ownership” than that.
What I said was not meant to be a criticism either, just a statement of personal preference.
AS Randy said apparently George thought better of it too if Randy’s statement is true:
"In recent years he has gone back and actually removed some of the detail from the earlier sections to make it look less cluttered. This was mentioned in the last article on the F&SM.
I’d search the article index if it was still around, but it was in one of the more recent ‘update’ articles about the reduction of ‘clutter’. He also modified some of the track to be more operational friendly.
I visited the F&SM layout in the summer of 1986 as a part of the NMRA convention held in Boston that year. It was mostly an island with the huge city scene, the skyscrapers and such. It was impressive then, and even more so these days. Back then George allowed photos to be taken, and I was greatful that I could, so I could check out the scenes in detail when I got home.
Yep, that’s the key word, Sheldon: balance. If realism and believability is what you are trying to achieve on your own layout then either too much or too little detail will be counterproductive to that. I use the world around me to help keep that in check for myself. And, to be honest - sometimes I’m surprised at what I do find out there. [(-D]
And, please - this is by no means a snub or slam on those who don’t strive for detail on their respective layouts. Again, it just depends on what you are trying to achieve or accomplish. That’s what makes this beloved hobby of ours such a great one. [Y][8D]
George started the Franklin and South Manchester in 1985. Allen Keller has featured the layout 3 different times in the Great Model Railroad video series. George had a book published several years ago with pictures of South Manchester and Doverton. George states that he built the layout by himself but has had help with wiring the layout. He has had friends build cars kits, paint locomotives, and he has bought several FSM kits that other modelers built or kitbashed and installed them on the layout. George states that he works for 3-6 months making the Fine Scale Miniature kit each year. The rest of the time is devoted to the layout. He said that he starts working on the layout at 8 AM every day and works well into the evening. This kind of dedication of time and effort has paid big dividends.
I find Selios to be an interesting subject. No one can take away his skills and attention to detail. However as stated the caricature style of his layout while well done is just too much for me. I have a large layout at around 300 square foot and would be hard pressed to really find a spot for even one FSM kit. For me they are just too busy of a look and distract from the layout as a whole. I did work last year converting a 100 square foot layout to DCC for a gentlemen who bought it from the wife of the builder who had passed away. He had 4 or 5 nice FSM kits he built and added to the layout but really one would have been enough. The just have too many different styles to them and to many different construction materials to look real to me. The rest of the layout looks so real the the FSM kits just don’t quite fit.
The other issue I have with FSM is much of the artists discretion you have when building other kits is taken from you. You are kind of stuck building it in the Selios way where with Campbell, Bar Mills, Laser Art, etcetera you have more room to fit the model to your needs than the other way around.
Not to say I will never own an FSM kit it’s just I haven’t found one that really fits me and what I am going for.
I keep a database of articles that interest me; it has just over 1500 entries sorted by type of article. Most FSM articles are under “town / urban” [8-|]