I am hoping that you guys can help me ‘flesh out’ my small town a little more. I’m trying to make my little buildings look like a town instead of models on a piece of plywood. I have a few pictures of the general look I’m trying to achieve. The setting is a small midwestern town around 1910 to 1920. I chose the dirt roads and wooden board walks based on a few pictures from Minnesota in the teens. All I can come up with is telephone poles and a few awnings. I also have a little work left on the buildings,(windows,doors, etc.) Any other ideas to make it come to life? Oh, the scale is HO. Thanks for the help.
Well in the bottom picture (which appears to be from the 1930’s-40’s) you’ll notice a lot of advertising signs, designed primarily to be seen from the sidewalk (i.e. to attract people on foot, rather than people driving by).
The pic above that is less “busy”, less advertising, but still the buildings all have signage on them, like the “New Hotel Warroad” sign which appears to be a banner of some kind, perhaps a (re)opening?? Notice too the awnings all have writing on them.
Typical signs like the ones in the bottom pic are available from Walthers. Add people walking on the sidewalks, a few parked cars, fire hydrants etc. and it should liven things up quite a bit.
How about tearing up a part of the board walk, and make it look like it’s in the process of being repaired by a small work crew?
A couple of boys rolling hoops down the street?
Tire tracks, Pot / mud holes ( your street is extreamly neat and level all the way ).
A car with the hood up and a couple of guys looking at the engine?
Store names, advertizing, people shopping.
Someone sticking their head out the window to talk to someone on the ground?
Open the roof hatches, unless it’s real cool, people did that quite often for ventalation - perhaps someone can be working or relaxing on one of the roofs.
You need cars,people,street lights,powerlines. O hole between the two buildings with a wooden fence across where an old building used to be. Check back on Bob Grech’s photos for some real good ideas and study your photos carefully and take notes while you notice details.
Considering the first picture of the real town, rut’s like that are not unbelievable, especialy if you wanted to depict the town right after a good rain.
Instead of putting a putty down and then making rut’s in it, try making the surface moist, then lightly sprinkel PoP, over it, in a very thin layer, and then making the ruts. The Plaster will pick up the moisture from the surface, and harden.
You would have to repaint, but, you would have much more control over how deep the ruts would be.
Note your upper prototype photo - a couple of barrels and a big curbside box of some kind. Also, people. Not people doing unusual things like repairing the boardwalk, but people doing very mundane things. A gentleman reaching for a doorknob to open the door for a lady (always done then, seldom done now.) Mom pushing a pram (not a modern stroller) with a preschooler hanging on to one side. Somebody standing, looking at a store window display.
And then there is the cliche - two old codgers sitting on boxes with a checkerboard on the upended barrel between them.
One other thing to remember. In the early years of the 20th century telephone poles had a bunch of arms and a maze of wires. Cabling hadn’t been invented.
Any idea what type of light post I should use? Do I mount them on the boardwalk or in the mud? I just can’t decide what needs to come next. I suppose like anything else, this is a process.
I think your town is a little on the barren side. That size business district could use some local customers in the form of residents. If possible try rotating “Main” street so it ends at the railroad depot and put a block of houses on either side of downtown to give it more of a populated look. travel of any distance would probably be by train so the town needs to recognize the importance of the railroad in daily life. Then add some people to bring it to life. The way it looks now it has more a feel of a western ghost town to me. That isn’t a criticism in any way.
I just plopped the buildings down so far. The amount of space I have for a town is very limited. Another thing I havn’t decided on is whether I should put houses in the town area or not. Here is an older, overhead shot of the room I have to work with. The spur at the top of the picture is no longer there.
You don’t have a road, you have buildings sitting on a flat space. Make the road discernable. Put grass or other buildings on the other side of the road to define it. You may have hitching posts for your earlier era.
Google HABS-HAER. It is a Library of Congress site that has all sorts of pix of buildings and industrial sites. Great inspiration.
Add some ‘evidence of life’. Crates, some barrels in front of buildings. People standing or sitting in front of buildings. Some autos or wagons parked/hitched in front of a store or two.
If 1910-20 is your era, that’s going to severly limit what you can use. Jordan Miniatures makes some Model T’s and horse-drawn buggies in that time frame. Look at Preisler and Woodland Scenics for figurines. Those two things will bring a lot of life to your layout. Line poles are another item to consider.
One wacky thing about streets in small-town Minnesota (and probably elsewhere) back then, is that they tended to be reeeeally wide - like a hundred feet or more. Even leaving room for parking on each side, there would be room for six lanes of traffic. I wonder why that was??
First, I would “bound” the street and the scene by putting something across the road from the buildings - either more buildings, or a fence, or at least a transition to grass to show where the street ends. The street needs to be blended right up to the sidewalk. With a gap between them, the buildings will always look like they were just set down there.
I’ll second the suggestion for awnings and signs. They give buildings some “personality” and force you to think of what each structure represents. Then, you’ll have a better idea of how to improve it by adding details.
Vehicles will add a lot. You’ll need only a couple for that era, either horse-drawn or early autos. Boxes and barrels can make your street look busier, too.
Finally, people and animals. You’ll have to look around for era-appropriate folks, but they do exist. You may want to paint them to tone down the colors a bit, because today’s bright fabrics weren’t common back then.
Thank you all for your help. The reason I havn’t done anything with the other side of the road is that I don’t have anymore buildings. I don’t want to fill it in with a temporary scenery, then rip it out when I get more buildings. You guys have given me some great ideas. Now I just need funding and time, both of which are scarce these days.
Have a look at the woodland scenics range of scenic bits they do some very old trucks that might fit in your time period?? they would help so probably would some of the detail bits like mail boxes and a few other bits. from their range.
Where is the mail box on main street the last vestiges of the wild west seem missing a couple of smallish wooden buildings would help with that
If you can get hold of Langley Miniatures models they would have to come from a shop that deals with UK models or on line, they do some nice Victorian and Georgian era figures they are OO scale, but you could get away with them if they are kept separate from the proper HO figures.
The period policeman could probably be convincingly painted as the local arm of the law
If town is big enough a horse drawn street car at the tram stop would make a nice mini scene (trolley track is noticeably different to railway track) or the hearse at boot hill.
Do choose figures that are in poses that look natural static poses with a bit of thought a lot can be hinted at eg the pram with the family dog standing guard out side the store ( something you certainly would not see in today’s world )
If the old photo’s from that time are anything to go on thing’s looked cleaner even the industrial areas, but no environazis to stop industry doing what it liked.
