as i’ve been completing portions of my layout i’ve been building cardboard stuctures and wondering if i’m wasting my time?
Of course cardboard structures can quickly fill the layout space. They also give me a chance to figure out what types of structures i’m looking for and what fits.
working with cardboard is like drafting, but instead of drawing lines, i’m cutting them and creating the final part. I think cutting styrene can be similar.
i’m trying different approaches for how parts fit togehter and are aligned. Not all approaches work and i feel it’s better to learn with cardboard than more expensive materials
i’m also making lots of mistakes, things cut slightly wrong but which i can live with because it’s just “temporary”, (right)?
printed windows add a lot and of course save a lot of time
i haven’t spent any time on doo-dads such as chimneys, vents, and other protrusions that add characters to a building.
i don’t think of myself as a model builder, whch i believe is what attracts most people to the hobby and always felt that it’s something to do when the layout is more complete. But i find working on structures a relaxing and pleasurable aspect of the hobby that i hadn’t expected.
i wonder how other moders feel about cardboard structures?
I scratch-build almost all my structures, and I always make a cardboard mockup of the building first. I sometimes have to try quite a few pieces to get angles or sizes correct. Sometimes, what looks great on paper doesn’t translate well to a 3D building on the layout, so it gives me the chance to correct things easily.
For some building mockups like this is a very useful tool. So if it helps you in your design process it is not wasted time.
As a side note, more elaborate cardstock buildings were once very commonplace in the hobby. I can post some pictures later of the some kits that are mainly or partly cardstock.
Maybe because of my professional skills in residential design, I can make a drawing, or even just a sketch and have a good idea of how a structure will look and feel.
But some projects are well served by mockups in any case.
As for 3D modeling with CADD, that is way too labor intense for me. I was trained as a draftsman LONG before CADD was a thing. I studied and learned CADD basics several decades ago. It is like a lot of other “learned skills”, seems easy once you learn it, plenty hard when you don’t know it.
And it is not “fast” until you develop some proficiency.
When I learned it, that experience answered my question, I did not need it for the types of architectual and engineering work I do. And the cost of approperate computer hardware and software could not be justified.
And I have found todays consumer grade “drawing” software to be just as hard to understand/learn.
Love the coal breaker, but, of course, most of the walls will have to be windows in the final. Maybe a good rationale for a printed cardstock structure.
Some of us can do that with pencil and paper and by doing what you are doing with mockups if necessary.
I drew my whole layout plan by hand in a larger scale before a very kind person who is a CADD professional used his exceptional talent and speed with CADD to create the version I share on this forum and elsewhere.
I’m not discounting the value of CADD, but its value changes based on the nature of a project. Some projects take full advantages of the features of CADD, others don’t really need its features.
If I was younger and smarter, I might be persuaded to use CAD. I’m not young, I’m not smart, and I have to use whatever time I have left doing what I like.
I like cutting out the cardboard shapes and scotch-taping them together to put on the layout. That gives me an idea of how the structure looks, how it fits, and what might be needed. I can then make the structure out of styrene.
I’m not against CAD, I just don’t see how I need it.
Twenty years ago I found this site where you could print off buildings that you could fold into structures and use tape or glue to hold together. My young 5 year old daughter loved these things. You could use them to give yourself ideas on how things looked when they were placed on the layout. They even had big industrial sized structures that required several sheets of paper.
I don’t know if such sites are still around or what the one I used was.
This little paper house is the last remaining paper structure my 5 year old made so long ago.
Print those sections on thick acetate, with heavy ink or toner coverage. You could then use a thin card or paper overlay if you want 3D detail or added light blocking.
An interesting approach I’ve heard of some people doing is making the main shape of the building out of cardboard and then gluing actual photos of the real building to the cardboard. It’s known as photo-texturing. You can also add some detail parts to it to help avoid everything looking flat.
If you’re good with software like Photoshop you can clean up the photos by editing out shadows and certain details to more closely match your era. That’s also a good way to make backdrops as well and I’ve read about it being done for that as well.
Two approaches in phototexturing: you can use the software to remove any perspective before scaling, or you can make the building in forced perspective to match the picture.
Before there was anything like online sites, I bought my daughters a book that had pages much as you describe. I photocopied the pages so we had dozens of them. The girls spent a lot of hours coloring, folding, and gluing those buildings.
In a spare bedroom, they had an entire city laid out with those buildings. I have some pictures (slides) of those, but I have no idea where the photos are. They’re in one of the boxes in the basement.
I think your cardboard buildings look terrific. They are good for figuring out what fits, as you mention, but also help figure out how to build something with styrene sheets. Here are some of my cardboard models, made with some white matboard cutoffs someone gave me:
I made an icehouse and a coal dealer, based off some models by the estimable doctorwayne. The icehouse looked ok, so I cut styrene siding and glued it to the card with canopy glue. Roof was masking tape. I used the coal dealer mockup to layout the styrene pieces.
What are you using for doors and windows? Photocopies from kits or Tichy?
Hi from the UK, I don’t think that card buildings just have to be used until something better turns up. I have several buildings on my layout which are card and permanent. Have a look at https://scalescenes.com/ for downloadable, printable buildings. I’ve also done some Youtube videos about it. Have a look at my channel: https://www.youtube.com/@csx-isolawest2011
