I have written about this before, but it is such a rewarding and fun experience that it deserves mentioning again. Besides the kids did such a fine job that there work deserves to be seen by a wider audience.
My Brother and his family from the UK visited over the Christmas holidays. All my nephews and nieces love to see the layout but I like to take it a step further. One afternoon I took Alex and Hayden, my niece and nephew, and my boys to the hobby shop to pick out a freight car. Nothing fancy, just a simple Athearn Blue Box. What fun they had assembling their first freight car and then getting to work with ink wash, paints and weathering powders. Here are the results.
All the cars together.
Alex wanted a light weathered look. She did not want it to be too grimy. I think she achieved a very good effect.
Hayden, who is 9 wanted a really grubby look. The flash rather washed out the very good dusty effect he achieved. He did a great job of the wheels!
Christopher, my 7 year old went for his usual grimy look.
The delight on the faces of the kids when they get to run a train pulling their own freight car is priceless. If you have kids that visit your layouts this is a great way to get them involved and a fantastic way to build a collection of priceless freight cars for the layout!
Wonderful idea, Simon!!! Even if they don’t ever get into MRRing, they will all remember fondly the time that you spent with them and the interest that you had in them. The Siskel (Roeper) and Ebert award for you, my friend. [tup][tup]
Simon, I presume when you say the kids are 7 and 9 that you really mean they’re 27 and 29, because that weathering is way too good to have come from a kid…
It’s neat to see the interest from kids. I’ve been quite pleasantly surprised personally at my 10-year-old’s enthusiasm for helping me test new stretches of track as the layout begins to take shape, and my one-year-old who goes to the gate blocking the basement stairs and points and yells, wanting to watch the “choo choo” some more.
Thanks for the comments. Tom, I hope you are right that memories are formed. I have as much pleasure out of this as they do. To me it is one of the real benefits of this hobby in that the kids can really get involved and hopefully get something out of it.
I try to structure these things a little. Just sitting them round a table full of paints and ink and no instruction would be perhaps more fun but would yield less satisfying end results! They get to do a little research rather than just getting stuck in with no plan. First they had a go at finding a prototype photo on the web. Then I took them in stages through the process. In the case of the gondolas they even got to choose the load that they wanted to create for the model. I had a sample bag of some rubber mulch from years ago. It looks a lot like scrap when given some rust and dirt. Just learning and thinking about gravity and how it would effect the look of streaks and rust marks goes a long way to creating a better looking model.
I’ll reiterate my last comment: Obvioiusly, they had an excellent instructor. [:)]
Simon, I think you’ll be surprised how quickly your research idea and planning session will get brought up by both your son and your nephew and nieces. (“Hey, Uncle Simon! Remember when we…?”) And, since there was a finished project that came out of it, that will be a tangible and visual affirmation (or reaffirmation) of your love and interest in their lives.
Simon, you also taught them the “art” of patience (putting together a model) and discipline (putting the model together the right way and researching their particular model to see how the prototype really was). As I stated above, they will take home more from that experience than just a model and time spent with their Uncle and dad.
So, did the cars stay on the layout? Or, did the kids get to take them home with them?
