Add relief to a card kit
Chris Nevard set himself the challenge of improving a printed card kit… it turned out so well that it inspired an extension to his layout!
Chris Nevard set himself the challenge of improving a printed card kit… and it inspired a layout extension.
I’ve been looking at the extensive range of highly regarded card kits in ‘OO’ and ‘N’ from Metcalfe Models for some time, pondering whether they could fit into one of my layouts. The stumbling point for me has been that many of my existing structures are made of embossed plastic, resin or scribed plaster over MDF or foam board. By their very nature, they have relief. But these card kits, as with all card kits, whether pre-printed or downloadable, lack that essential relief, and matching the different structures could create an inconsistent look. But what if I could devise an effective method of blending these buildings together? It would require the addition of extra detail and a careful weathering job, but it should be possible… Always up for a challenge, I decided to see what could be done. Besides, I really liked the look of Metcalfe’s ‘OO’ Factory Entrance and Boiler House kit. The grand stone-lined archway was just crying out for a railway to run through it, similar to the building at Snape Maltings in Suffolk. The main objective was to achieve a less uniform look to the printed sheets. This was going to be the biggest challenge, involving a change from my usual approach to painting and weathering. When working on plastic or resin buildings, I like to use washes: brushing them on, then wiping much of the media away, leaving pigment in the nooks and crannies. This ‘wet’ method would not work on such a porous, flat material as printed card. Therefore, a different, ‘drier’ approach would have to be trialled.
EXTENDED BLISS
The dry-brushing technique can be very effective and it can be used for all sorts of weathering. Combined with the addition of roof slates and other small details, it certainly helped to get the best out of this Metcalfe kit. In fact, the results were so pleasing that it spurred me on to extend my ‘Brew Street’ layout. The complex of buildings now sits very happily on the new baseboard and doesn’t look at all out of place beside other types of model building. Best of all, I managed to get trains to run through that wonderful archway.