I love that Steve Thomason photo, at Far Ings Tileries. As I said when learning to make the dirt, 3 ties, some broken concrete: I love this study: “I’m not a very good modelmaker and don’t have a lot of good models in my portfolio. I need to practice deconstructing an image to see its components and then practice their translation in miniature form. Instead of making a model of what I think I saw, modelling what is actually there. In a scale as large as this, modelling the forms and textures. Staying with something familiar, like track, felt like a place to start.”
I want to try making a model of that scene. Over coffee, this morning, I worked through the details in the above series of sketches. For me, this process is a narrative of identifying “what’s that detail” and “how could I” and then thinking about how I can adapt what I think might work.
Addendum
While out enjoying the day, I kept thinking about the water. Obviously it’s silty; that backhoe’s been disturbing it to pick each bucketload of clay. I have long wanted to try casting layers of water in a series of mottled semi-opaque levels so when viewed down it’s opaque but transparent when viewed across.
I’m a big believer in “if you can draw it you can build it”. Working this second page of notes I have a better understanding of the water. I think all those layers are just going to be unproductive effort. That proves the worth of this time. Further, I spent more time studying how the water actually looks. And that’s what this is about.
Categories: 16mm scale track studies, How I think, modelmaking, one 16mil
Prince Street 
Chris,
Water like that I would think is actually paint as I don’t see the usual creep of resin up into the scenery. For ideas how to paint it, search on YouTube for Boomer Diorama vlog 88 and 191.
Thanks! I’ll check those suggestions out. The big challenge and attraction here is how such a large modelling scale challenges techniques developed in the smaller scales. Things I’d rely on in HO just don’t seem to work. I love how this inspires curiosity.
Water – a flat base still though, because the waves all start from the same surface, that’s going to be key in a large scale.
I too am a fan of Steve’s collection of photos, Far Ings is long gone now though. I think the tilery is still operational but more as a museum iirc. I might be mixing up my industrial narrow gauge though!
The INGRS article indicates the Far Ings operation closed in 2001 and updates from elsewhere on the ‘net agree with your memory – that the site continues on as a museum. I love the human-scale of the railway part of the operation and think that translates beautifully to a model railway. The real thing is a one person, one engine, one project that repeats in a purpose-filled and yet calm cadence that feels like the real life thing we dream of, most, for the model railways we create.
The waves are interesting. I continue to sketch them and I have started practicing their form using plasticine. What’s interesting, and you can see it even in the small volume of water nearest the trains in Steve’s photos, is how waves lay on top of waves. It’s a pattern that feels obvious while playing in the waves on beach and interesting to observe in this smaller pool where the disturbance is simply the shovel on the back of that tractor.
The more I study this the more I realise that this fun study is itself an opportunity to practice both the low glass we can see growing in this rich area, alongside the runwaway clay, and water…everywhere (I think I even see wood ties with lovely green shades that will be so much fun to make models of).
–Chris