TimberSurf's 2018 OO Gauge Christmas competition No. 11 submission

My previous layout never got past "body in white". (it had about one square foot of flock). I have spent the last 15 years researching the net, for techniques and materials and scoping everyone else's layouts at shows. I have bought/made every conceivable tool and material and set myself up with a modelling "workshop" that I am sure if I showed pictures of it (no chance, it's a mess!) that most would be highly envious of. The two 6ft by 2ft boards I have done so far, were my first attempt at static grass, point motors, detailing and weathering. I assure you this is my first ever diorama! As detailed in the thread, most of it is experimentation with new to me techniques, that seem to be surprisingly successful, but only by dint of the hundreds of hours founding the principles from dutyfull research. The web is a wonderful teacher and has some amazing video how to's on just about everything.

 

Thanks guys
I am no stranger to SLR camera's, but I converted to digital once they got bigger than 4 megapixels and have had a succession of compact digital s since. Though I have a 14mp which is great for pictures, none of them produce great video for my youtube channel. So I have bought a new superdooper 24mp DSLR.
Its gonna take weeks to find out how it works!
So I have been playing with depth of field for digital pics. F stop 32 is a wonderful thing!

Here is another teaser

 

Having shaped the moving top of the windmill, the hard part was to make the fan realistic and be motorised! (for phase two)
Making the fan from scratch was hard enough, but the frame (being made from cheap Chinese strips) kept breaking apart. Luckily I bought some superdooper superglue at the Widnes exhibition,which seems to solve the problem, that normal polystyrene cement has no adhesion!
The next problem was to get a rubber band to be stretched precisely the right amount, orientated perfectly so the elastic band tracks perfectly and in alignment to pass through the wall and not foul the fan blades. In the end, I glue and removed the motor about 7 times before I got it right (back wall now looks like Swiss cheese!!!).

 

Gary, I am a cheapskate and were is the challenge in 'easy'
Take my seated people, it's a matter of scale, no not 1:72, but 1:100.
50 coaches with 10 people in each = 500.
5 x 100 x £2 Chinese = £10, 100 x 5 Prieser x £10 = £1000! (hence 1:100)

Tony, yes fully aware of rubber degradation, hence the whole Windmill is removable with electrical connectors and the top is held on with 3 screws to easily access the motor for band replacement. See post #30. The bigger issue is they tend to 'pulse' the motion, I may well look at drive bands in 2019, cheers.

 

Now the fence is on the upper deck, final assembly and all wiring has been pulled through the mechanism.
Left - two motors in head (main and fantail)
Middle - two circuits for lighting
Right - rotation servo

 

I have been taking pictures and video for the last few weeks with my superdooper camera, but it struck me that my MS Moviemaker editor is a bit below par for what I want. So I have downloaded about 7 freebie ones to see which one I get on with the best. It takes hours to try out each one, but number 6 seems to be a winner, easy to use and has all the features I want. NCH Videopad. Last night I set up the diorama for a lighting shoot, blow me if one of the lights don't work! (and me an Electrical Engineer), I had wired it with the wrong polarity, no idea how, as I had tested it and it was working on the bench?

 

Wow, a couple of weeks gone by and nothing done! I have been lost in photography mode, researching (as I always do) the cheapest way to get the best equipment. I have been looking at sliders and trolleys and fancy stuff like that. So far, I have resisted buying anything! So the basic I need for the diorama is for the camera to rotate around it, so I tried mounting the base on a lazy Susan and rotating the diorama! (that's one advantage of it over taking video of a fixed layout!). The results are.........."jerky".
So I have screwed a motor/gearbox to the base and wrapped a rubber band round its shaft and the lazy Susan, hey presto, motorised turntable!
I have taken about 20 minutes of video and its taking forever to find and cut the best bits for the video.
I have lots of stills in the bag, just need to do some action shots with the video of the animation and if I get time, I will have a longer go at doing some more stop motion.



P.S. Come on you slackers, there is only 2 weeks to go!

 

Haha! Got you worried!

 

So Ian has set the bar and I feel lacking, as mine has no reference to xmas!
If I cover it in snow, it will look odd as the only white patch on my layout!
The only explanation I can think of is that a Nutty Professor has rented the Windmill and has invented a localised snowy weather machine!

I better put my thinking cap on!

 

Fire crew? What are you trying to say?
Edit:Only got it today, what you meant! lol, the kids show)

 

So, the diorama has been mostly finished for a long time now. A suitable new video editor has been chosen, used on two exhibition video's and now I have mastered it, after many hours, I have finished the video edit of this diorama. It will be released tomorrow.

So without further ado, here are the pics