The WMD Film Crew have been busy during the build of the Dapol Booking Hall kit and their results are here for your visual entertainment and pleasure!

Its finished!

Yes, it is finished! Not Mrs. Woody's list of jobs for me to do but the Dapol kit is now done. Final bits were adding the roof and canopy along with the privacy fence for the gents toilet as well as the front doors. Also added were some posters, a clock face and a gentleman inside at the ticket hatch. I think he may have a long wait until he can get his ticket! Anyway, some pictures illustrate the final product far better than my words can but I can say I am pleased with it!

Its nearly there! The windows and doors are now attached to the Dapol Booking Office and things are looking good!

A few more details to add, then the roof and chimneys and it will be done!

Hush, hush!

I had to be hush, hush at the Rocks b Rail Museum so no noisy mowers or strimmers! The reason? A film crew. Cant say what the programme is but it will be on main stream TV probably the back end of next year or in 2027! However it was great to watch it being made.

Mr. D in his brand new paint job is a major part of the programme and John and Thomas have made a fantastic job in less than a week.

John  ain the cab awaiting his time to drive.

Meanwhile things did carry on away from the filming with work on steam loco Barrington involving taking off the non-original coal bunker and replacing it with a normal cab back.

A view into the cab that you would not normally get!

Outside work on 1931 carries on with the boiler being washed out ready for inspection.

Richard was under the loco with a hose pipe.

Whilst Hazel was at the side pulling the debris that had washed out through the drain hole.

A great job to do on a hot day!

Chimney pots.

Just a small amount of work on the Dapol Booking Hall kit but it does make a difference. The Chimney pots are moulded as a solid part. By drilling through the chimney pot part and opening it up it does make it look a lot more realistic - it will be enhanced once painted and fitted to the roof!

I do enjoy these small jobs - if only the jobs on Mrs. Woody's list for me to do where this small!

What a pain to do the panes!

 What a pain to do the panes! Well actually it was not too bad a job to glaze the windows for the Dapol building. I could have used the clear plastic sheet provided but choose to use DeLuxe Materials Glue n Glaze to give a better finish and to fill in the all to deep window bars in the window frames.

Basically all I had to do was get the Glue n Glaze into the apertures and let it set.

It looks a bit of a mess but you need to have patience!

After a few hours it all turns good and clear!

And closer in you can see the end result.

Just need to add them to the main building now! Hopefully that won't be too much of a pain!

A night on the tiles!

Well I did spend some of the night painting the tiles on the Dapol kit and very soothing it was! As with the brickwork blogged about a few days ago, I picked out random tiles in a slightly lighted colour to the main colour used. I also used the same Rust colour trhat IU had for the brickwork on the ridge tiles and it contrasts nicely.

Of course it all looked too clean so a wash of dilute black paint was applied. You can see the effect in the half and half photo below.

With the entire roof 'washed', it was set to one side to dry.

With the roof temporarily on the building it all begins to take shape!

Its not easy to be random!

 It is not easy to be random despite what Mrs. Woody may think about my actions! What I am talking about here is being random in picking out individual bricks in a wall such as on the Dapol model I am building at the moment. Looking at a real building you notice that there a subtle and on occasions not so subtle variations in the colour of individual bricks. I replicated this to some degree on my model by taking the Rust coloured paint that I had painted the brickwork in and adding either the Sand or Leather Brown colour as used in previous painting of the model, in small amounts on a plastic bag to make up slightly darker and lighter colour variations on the original Rust colour. Individual bricks were then painted and an interesting effect starts to build up.

This is also the point at which being random becomes difficult - well for me anyway - as I always seem to start developing a symmetrical pattern in painting individual bricks! I really have to think hard about randomness! Just hope Mrs. Woody doesn't read this or I could face some difficult questions!

With the brick work painted, randomly, it was time to add some mortar to the joints and generally tone and weather the colour down. That was done with a very dilute cat of grey paint which was just applied to the surface and allowed to find its own way inti the brick joints.

Finally, all the brickwork had been treated and it looks a lot more lifelike.

I will need to do a similar treatment on the slate roof but I still need to get the windows and doors finished before I can think of adding the roof! You cant just make a model in a random fashion!

Adding some colour!

With the undercoated parts dry it was time to add some colour to the Dapol kit. The inside walls were painted with Sand, the ticket area woodwork was blue, the floor Leather Brown and the brickwork, rather oddly, Rust from the Panzer Aces range. I just found it a great match for brick colour.

Whilst most of the colour was brush applied I did airbrush the steps which would have been a nightmare to paint by hand!

Still more to do but a bit of colour does bring out the detail and with a few techniques that are up my sleeve that detail should get even better in the future!

Not the simple job that I hoped for!

Painting the Dapol station building did not turn out to be the simple job that I hoped for! I think a mix of hot weather, and some dodgy paint made the undercoating of the building and the preciously built steps a lengthy and frustrating process involving cleaning the airbrush on several occassions. However, forget about the frustration and admire the undercoated and primed models! 

Next job - add some colour!