That’s a line from the song “One Night In Bangkok” which was the breakout hit from the musical Chess back in the 80’s.
Anyhoo.
Here’s some pics of my summer layout which has a Thai theme.
I made two new structures for it this year, the little blue speeder shed up front and this little red house:
The deck is made from wood while the walls I drew by hand on pieces of thick card, like the kind you find on the back of paper tablets. For the roof I used a free texture from a texture site and used Photoshop to create sheets approximately the right size. You can’t tell from this photo, but the “scalloped shingles” are actually real scallops! I thought a seashell roof for a seaside town would be fun!
As you can see from the photo above, each wall is actually two walls. A flat base panel and an outer panel with “woodwork” details cut into it. The windows were made using a photo of a real window with bamboo trim sized to fit in Photoshop. Normally I would have printed them on vellum (like the illuminated signs on the buildings) but my new printer can’t do it. So I used 20lb paper glued inside scraps of clear plastic.
Oh, the balls on top of the railing posts are plastic BB’s.
The blue speeder shed was drawn from scratch in Photoshop.
Stunning! Absolutely stunning!
If I ever want to “Thai” one on I’m coming to your place!
Penny,
Really a nice job! Very beautiful, reminds me of Bangkok.
Thanks so much.
This is why I now model Spring, Penny.
Nice display. Thanks for sharing.
Fantastic modeling !! I absolutely Love it !!!
Here’s a bit of nostalgic trivia: you are using card stock for construction. There was a time in Model Railroading this was commonly used, before styrene became more the norm. People normally used card stock covered with a coat of lacquer. This became a surface similar to styrene.
Cardsock is still an excellent material to work with !!!
Paul
That’s incredibly detailed work! It’s packed with all kinds of great stuff!!!
Thanks guys! [:D]
Several of the buildings were made using kits or parts of kits I purchased from www.scalescenes.com. The T007 Office Block from their “Townscenes” line (the tall building to the left of my friend here):
…is a prime example. I used their TX00a Interior Detail set along with other bits and pieces to add interiors to the tower:
The only problem with using these kits is since they don’t make O scale versions, only OO or N, it’s often a guess as to what will print out close to the size I need. The figures inside the 007 tower are from the MTH unpainted figure set which are a lot smaller than the 1:50 and 1:43 figures at the front of the building. (See the photo above with the bus).
Scalescenes produces mostly British style buildings (Bob Keller and Endmike, I’m looking at you! [;)]), but Clever Models LLC. has kits for sale that are more “American” in their styling (including a White Castle Hamburger stand). Like the Scalescenes models, you purchase a link to download the model and print it yourself. Which means the kits are very reasonable. Also, many of Clever Model’s kits are available in O, S, HO and N scale versions so you don’t have to guess what’s going to print out the right size.
Two great sources for free “Main Street Style” structures are Build Your Own Historic Illinois Buildings:
So much detail !!! The more I look, the more I see!!
I even saw the Tuk Tuk !
Paul
There are 4 of them. [;)]
One is hiding just beyond the fence at Bangsaen Beach:
Another is in front of the Mercure Hotel:
You know about the one parked by the Forum shopping center. But the fourth one is the hardest to find. It’s parked in front ot the Hospital which is the building hiding in the corner with the big green cross on the roof. Or just the other side of the Southern heavyweights behind the bus:
The 3 cars in the foreground are from Menards, I picked them up at a train show along with this great VW Microbus:
A few more pics from about town.
Every layout should have a Porsche. [;)]
That’s Tom Cruise’s Ninja from Top Gun leaning against the 7-11. It’s a Hot Wheels model, the only Japanese made bike I could find that’s close to the right size for the layout.
Harleys just wouldn’t work. [;)]
This pink tree may look a bit goofy but it was an experiment. I was trying to make trees that looked like the ones in traditional Thai art rather than anything you find in reality.
I don’t know why but I like how this picture turned out:
There’s a tradition of Kite flying in Thailand. The men line up on one end of a field and try to get their enourmous bird shaped kite into the air. It can take 20 men to do it! Then the women line up at the other end flying smaller, one person kites. The idea is that the males try to fly their kite over to the women’s side and drag one of their kites back to their end of the field. The women, of course, tend to instead team up and drag the big male kite over to their side. I made
This is fantastic! When you say “summer layout,” how long will you leave it up?
It pulls double duty. Sometime around late August/early September I’ll start boxing things up so I can clean the rails, fix anything that needs to be and do any upgrades I think up. Then I start cleaning the rest of the room a bit more thoroughly and start setting up the Christmas Plasticville version the first week of November:
Having only the ground cover and the track itself being permanent is a bit of a pain really! [;)]
Especially if I lean on one of those pairs of bolts I use as 14 volt power terminals and drive one of them into my palm. [:S][oops]
Becky, I’m surprised I never noticed before, (maybe not, considering how well imagined and built your Christmas layout is) but are those big fat retro bulbs on your Christmas tree lights?
Genuine bonafide room warming C-7 candellabra base bulbs. About 74 of them to be exact (one socket doesn’t work anymore). I zip tied three strings to the branches several years ago to save time setting up.
That layout looks awesome!
Thanks! It’s a lot of fun! [:D]
Ah, a traditionalist and proud of it! Good for you!
I gave up and went with LED’s. They work pretty well, in addition to putting weird patterns on the walls, ceiling, the train board and the trains themselves.
You should see the living room with only the tree lights on. Otherworldly, to say the least.
Yeah. Except for that “mineral miracle” snow that keeps shedding from the branches…You know. White. Fibrous…