Thanks Mark - reply sent. 8-)

Now that's a beautifully composed diorama! It doesn't look like it was designed by a model railroader at all. [:-blindfold]

Meaning, you've beaten that tendency to put things flat, square, parallel and so forth and created a great little "slice of life" ... gives me the feeling that I'm looking out a window and seeing this "real" scene that just happens to be framed by the rectangular window or photo edges ...

And, of course, all the component progress is shaping up beautifully. Great stuff.

Mark, I had missed your answer about the road trip and the comment about the rugby final. I can't imagine how the blues could win against the blacks.

Hi guys.

Dallas - thanks for your compliment! I guess Its all the stuff I learnt while studying composition in my music degree.

Frederic - I hope you are right!

Cheers, mark.

Hi Mark...yes, you've reached the "high mark". This project was a clever idea, using a clever plan with clever angles which created quite a clever outcome. I'd love to be at one of your setups to see this impressive diorama in person! Keep those pictures coming! :up: :up: [:P]

Mark, a belated congrats to the blacks (I was away from home all the week). It was less easy than expected, but they deserved their second crown!

Beautiful work, Mark. :up:

Delbert

Hi Guys.

Thanks for the nice comments Mike and Delbert!

Frederic - I'm not realy a rugby fan (unlike most of NZ!) but that game had me on the edge of my seat! It couldn't have been any closer!

Well, I've been rethinking a large part of Tellynott in recent times. This has come about for several reasons.

1 - I have very much enjoyed constructing smaller buildings on curves and at gradient.

2 - My previous plans of a large raised central city with an underground station to the right of the corner diorama will mean many of the lovely views, especially the leading line up the lower curved road, and the angled view of my Rugg-a-like (Roslyns - my favourite structure to date) will be lost.

3 - in wake of our very destructive earthquake I feel compelled to give my layout more of a NZ feel - which means more two and three storied buildings, and less larger buildings.

4 - The oppitunity to model specific NZ buildings - many in our wonderful neo-gothic and Gothic revival styles.

5 - I believe following this path will help lead me to a truely unique layout.

So, after tiring of assembling windows with six and seven different parts on my Fanny Schwahn's build, I cleaned the old large city setion of the layout off (in absolute chaos as I haven't done this since the Feb earthquake) and started planning.

The section behind the track runs approximately 9' from the corner diorama to the wall at the right end. It is 1' 8" wide where it joins into the corner diorama and runs in a somewhat wibbly woobly line to the far wall where it is 8" wide. As I scratchbuild and kitbash almost everything I build now, it leaves me free to design whatever shapes I want, and the biggest defining element is the roads.

So here's what I did (its a techinique I often used when writing music)

I found a map of an area akin to what I am trying to achive - steep, curving roads at gradient which are asthetically pleasing, very cramped, and give good leading lines. The obvious choich was Lyttelton - the area on which I have taken a lot of inspiration for many elements of Tellynott.



Now notice at the right end an area of very curvey and interesting roads? Just what I'm looking for. I enlarged the map to a similar scale to my plan and cut them out with a knife. Here they are turned upside down.



I then placed this on my plan.



I altered things a bit, and obviously the part at the back got cut off. The road at the front I pulled downwards at the right end and it will run along the wharf.

Here are a couple of pics after a sunday afternoon of playing with polystyrene. The poly is 40mm (about 1 5/8") thick. The stacks at the back are over 4 tall (160mm, 6 1/2").

These next two pics run from left to right. The two roads at the left end of the first pic run into the corner diorama. The Rugg-a-like mock-up is positioned to help with orientation (and to help me not hide these leading lines).






I manipulated things slightly in order to give me the best possible leading lines. Although space is tight, there will be room for up to five structures comming in decending altitudes down the hill, and the longways views will be far more vast. I must say I am very excited about this major change!

I hope you have found this of interest - It seems the Tellynott corner diorama my well lead to the Tellynott backwall diorama!

Cheers, Mark.

Mark, thanks for the how-to! I'll probably use that approach in replanning the city at the end of my layout.

dave

I really like your approach on designing things both in a 2D and 3D manner. It should lead you to another very interesting scene.

Mark,

Looks exciting--it is going to be fun to see what is next.

Peter

Nice way of designing Mark, do hope to see the tellynott backwall dio evolve.....I'll be watching..

Thanks for showing the thought process behind your work, Mark. That 3D mockup is the key to getting it right.

George

Thanks for following along guys!

Dave, Frederic, Peter, Martin and George - thanks so much for your interest. Sometimes I wonder whether others will find what I often see as the most interesting part of designing, interesting. I get a lot of my 'wow!' moments when working with polystyrene. I find myself looking at the shapes left between the wall and the roads, one road and the next road, the road and the track, and thinking of all the pics I have in my head of old NZ buildings and how I might manipulate them to fit in.

Well, I have brought the foam gun home from work - so this weekends modelling time will be spent cutting this section out of my layout, glueing the poly in position, and foaming between the gaps. My wife foolishly suggested that I could set up a table in her sewing room and work there! (and she has seen the state of my studio!)

Cheers, Mark.

Hi Guys.

Here's some pics to show progress.

The base cut and removed from the layout, poly glued in place and foam setting.



end view showing some of the leading lines.



Ok - I was going to upload a couple more, but there's a glitch in the matrix.

The foam has all been cut off to suit the curves of the road. Dimensions are 6' 8" by approximately 1' 8". Next is to cut poly to fit between the roads and build the intermediate land up to height.

Cheers, Mark.