Archives, Distractions and Daleks

A very young DJK with first train set

It has been a while since I posted. Not much model work has been done; instead I've been ploughing through the family archives and scanning old photos creating some very interesting photo collections. 

Most of which have no place on this blog with the exception of my first model railway, probably the first introduction to scale model making. This was a ‘OO gauge’ Hornby railway.

Lego Olympic Stadium in John Lewis, Stratford

For fans of Lego and similar building blocks, and Doctor Who here are two photos taken in John Lewis at Westfield in Stratford. (I think they’ve been doing some big sporty thing there recently). This is the Olympic stadium built from Lego.

They also have a large red Dalek, I’m guessing built with Character Options’ building blocks. Quite ideal considering the deadly pepper pots have just made a welcome return to TV this weekend here in the UK.

Character Options Dalek in
John Lewis, Stratford

I have done some work on the ‘Ship and Hankor’, and at the bottom are a few photos of the latest stage, mainly working on the chimneys and walls.

"The Ship and Hankor" Part Two

Rather than go into a lot of detail about this, as the techniques are pretty much the same as I’ve used in the past I’ll mainly just put up some progress pictures. Two things to comment on, the attic windows I think are going to be a pain, I’ve only done the frame for one so far and it just did not want to go together. The second is the extra chimney at the end. It was on some of the earlier designs but not on the last sketch I did. I felt it was needed when I started to look at the actual shape.

"The Ship & Hankor" Part I

This weekend I started to work on the Ship & Hankor pub that appears in the Karl Trilogy, it is one of a number of buildings I want to construct that belong to the fictional world where the books are set. I’ve already made “Zandina’s Town House”.

The Ship & Hankor features several times in all three books. It is where Karl is caught telling stories to the dock workers, where he later gets taken from by the stranger, and where in book two his father has to be saved from a group of thugs. (Oh, and why the misspelling of the pub name? That’s a secret for now.)

I’ve been sketching the design for the pub for quite some time, I know what I want. Now is the time to realise the design. Although I have some leeway, it is still my design and not a model of a known building I do have very specific features that need to be included and less chance to tweak it as it goes along. This may mean a bit more care and attention along the way.

I’ve started by cutting out the basic frame using foam board. I pinned it together before gluing to ensure the general fit. 

From some of the off cuts I made a couple of supports for the roof, creating the triangular shape to support the roof and about 1cm of foam board down as a beam to strengthen the sides.

With this fixed in place I added the roof. The next part of the basic shape is to add the porch way main entrance to the corner and the small attic rooms in the roof. 

At this point the bright blue sky turned dark and stormy and working out on the table became impossible. So the rest of Sunday was taken up with edits on book 2.

Monday night I cut out the porch pieces and fitted them together before attaching them to the main body, and then added a sloping roof. Next I added an additional back room; this is going to be the kitchen part with one of the chimneys.

I cut the three outer wall sides, then a from a scrap piece of foam board a fourth wall with roof point, which is glued to the outside main wall. This strengthens the kitchen piece and gives the roof something to glue on to at the other side.

If I find any more of the sketches I'll add to the later posts.