Bus ready for departure (1/35)

My 1:35 scale version of the Opel bus from the Nystrup-Ubehage-Dimholt-Skovby route is now ready for departure. The route connected the towns of Nystrup and Skovby via a route through the dark and inhospitable woods around the small hamlets Ubehage and Dimholt.

The bus picking up a passenger on its way to Nystrup.

 In the last blog post on the bus I was getting ready to fit sides to the model. An operation I had read other modellers found rather difficult. Thanks to that knowledge I was well prepared and the actual process went smoother than expected.

Sides fitted to the chassis. The roof is only temporarily fitted.

With the sides fitted I finished the weathering of the interior and prepared the seats for instalment. The seats are placed extremely close to each other and there is very limited room for the model figures to be fitted as passengers later. Perhaps the bus was the inspiration for the design of the seat placing in Ryan Air commercial airliners?

Ready for fitting of the seats.

Seats fitted and all exterior details glued on. The bus is ready for primer and paint. I fitted turned brass width indicators on the front mud guards. The width indicators came from RB Models from Poland. I had to make a rear view mirror myself as I wasn't able to locate one among the kit parts.

When the primer was completely dry I started masking to begin air brushing. As orange has bad coverage over the blue colour I masked the areas to recieve blue and spayed orange on the window band directly on the primer. After drying I masked the orange area carefully and air brushed the blue colour. I used Vallejo 70911 'Light Orange' and Vallejo Air 71005 'Intermediate blue'. Mudguards were brush painted black. Details were also painted with a brush. The thin chrome band separating orange and blue areas was painted a day I felt I had a particularly steady hand. Decals were designed and ordered from 'Skilteskoven'.

The bus during detail painting. After painting I gave the complete model a layer of gloss varnish to prepare the surface for the decals.

I applied the decals with the use of decal softener and setter from Mr. Hobby. While I don't really know if the setter liquid does anything useful, the softener definately helps the decals to conform the model's surface. When satisfied with the decals I gave the bus a final layer of gloss varnish.

After fitting two passengers, a driver and fitting the windows I closed up the bus by gluing the roof in place (see the figures built and painted in this previous post). Originally I had planned to fit more passengers, but the seat spacing makes it difficult. Other modellers planning to build the bus could perhaps consider adjusting the spacing by leaving out a row of seats? On the roof rack I placed the spare wheel, a fuel canister and a suitcase tied down with EZ Line.

Crossing the viaduct over Nystrup Gravel's 600 mm. line. The bus is heading north towards Ubehage on its way to Skovby.

A rear view of the Opel Blitz bus. Made from a 1:35 scale kit from Ukrainian manufacturer Roden.

With the bus finally finished I can now move on to other tasks. More on those projects coming up soon.

Fowler Driver Finished (1/35)

Last blog post left the Fowler driver ready for primer and paint. In this post the driver will be painted, weathered (yes, I apply weathering to figures too) and placed in the Fowler's cab.

I mentioned that I built the Fowler driver while making figures for my Opel bus. Here they are all four of them before primer.

Two figures with primer. To avoid fumes from the primer I bring items for priming outside the house.

Main colours have been brushed on the figures. I have used Vallejo acrylics. The paints don't smell, they flow well from my brushes and are easily cleaned from the brushes with tap water.

Painting finished. The three figures for the bus are ready to be glued in place. Minor adjustments still needed on the loco driver as he stands out more in the Fowler cab. After the photo was taken I painted a little dirt on the driver's coverall and used pastel chalk to make his boots appear dusty.

Loco driver in position in the cab.

Working on figures can be a modelling adventure in itself. I try to have a relaxed attitude toward figure modelling and have no ambitions of reaching anything near the military modellers' accomplishments that are stunning. My model figures are there to help locomotives and vehicles appear realistic and give a hint of size. I set off 1-2 effective hours of work for modelling and painting each figure. In my opinion that is a good compromise between the horrific prefinished figures you can buy for Gauge 1 (1:32 scale) model railways and the masterpieces from military modellers.

Fowler Driver (1/35)

As I was in the proces of constructing three figures for my Opel bus, I took the opportunity to build a driver figure for my Fowler diesel. The figure is the first stage in a series of tasks I will perform on the Fowler in the months to come.

Even though 1:35 scale is supplied with a good selection of figures useful for a model railway like mine, there is no escape from scratch building if I want to add a realistic driver to my model  locomotives. The following images show how I built a driver for the Fowler loco. I used parts from four figures from the MiniArt set  35009 'Soviet Tank Crew at Rest' combined and suitably modified.

Legs from two figures modified and combined to fit the Fowler's floor.

Before the glue fully dried, I placed the leg assembly on the foot plate to check for a good fit.

With Miliput I built up the coverall on the leg fitted with a high boot. I tested two different upper bodies for the most natural stance of the driver.

Upper body and head fitted. A little unusual for a 1950's Danish worker are the steely look a'la 'Hero Soviet Worker' and no cloth cap. I decided to live with that.

Arms fitted and my putty and Miliput conversions painted to check for errors. To soften up the figure's  'Soviet Super Man' appearance I added a pipe in his left hand. (Please don't mention that Stalin smoked pipe!).

With the figure finished the next stage is priming and then painting. I will illustrate that process with a series of images too.