With all the images from my little gravel railway you'd sure expect it to have been visited by photographing railway enthusiasts. Although the workshop manager Thorleif Petersen was a very active photographer, many images and film sequenses from Nystrup Gravel were shot by some of the first Danish railway enthusiasts. I wanted to have a few of the pioneer trainspotters on my 1:35 railway.
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Before painting. I still need to go over both figures with sand paper and file once more before I prime them. |
My two trainspotters began as a US military cameraman from Plus Models and a MK35 man in long jacket (figure F176). The cameraman had his trousers carved into a pair of plus fours Tintin style and fitted with a head from a MK35 figure. I removed all military insignias and made some subtle changes on the beret. The figure's arms were positioned to operate the camera. As the camera tripod is quite a flimsy construction in 1:35 scale I placed it on a piece on thin brass sheet together with the figure. After painting camera and figure I will cover the brass sheet with ground cover and a few grass tufts.
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A Plus Model's image of a painted cameraman assembled straight from the box. |
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I'm looking forward to see these guys chase the trains on Nystrup Gravel. |
The enthusiast in the long coat took much less work. All I did was to build a simple model of a 1950's Rolleiflex 2.8A. I used a piece of plastic stock and detailed it with a few slices of plastic tube and some spare etched metal. The camera's sling was cut from copper foil.
Before I sat down at the worktable, I cleared the shed from my layouts. It takes only 10 minutes to dismantle the layouts. So while I'm certainly not anywhere near being a good woodworker, I have nevertheless made something that actually works.
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The intermediate backdrop (a roll of heavy paper) has been removed and the modules ready for dismantling. |
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Last module standing. A moment later all four parts of the Nystrup universe were moved out of the garden shed and back on the shelves in my study. |