Balancing Towns with Trainyards

[Legoless]

Legoless, I am the same age as you and your comments made me smile, I know exactly what you mean. If you could pull that off, a monochrome steam era layout would be a lovely unique idea to see built :) I can picture it now and think it would look great if everything could be kept to black and greys. Infact, I wish I'd thought of doing that, it could have worked fantastically as a 2 board section inbewteen full colour sections of my display!

You'd be most welcome to use the idea, as I am unlikely to, at least for the forseeable future. But I think it would be very hard to carry off in Lego, simply because it would need to be done entirely in shades of grey (even the blacks and whites to avoid excessive contrast), and Lego bricks are too 'blocky' even with sophisticated building techniques. Lego Bley is too 'blue', old grey is getting rarer, and what made period black and white photography so characteristic was the graduation of grey tones as well as the effect of shadowing. I think it could be done well in conventional model railway scales (O Gauge would probably be ideal) with a very skilled eye and a airbrush. Could make a really interesting late steam/prototype diesel era layout!

[cimddwc]

This black and white idea sounds really interesting, but I agree it could be "a bit" hard, especially in large scale. Bley may be a bit too bluish, and old dark grey too brownish/olive.

But for a small model, it could work – coincidentally, last week I built one floor of a house in black and white: a private investigator's office, kinda film noir style; turned out quite well, I think. I'll show you once the rest of the house is completed...

[Bricktrix]

In response to Legoless and cimddwc, I fully take on board your comments and understand what your both saying, but I dont know if the hues of blueish grey and dark grey would make a severe impact on the look or not?

I think built to this scale, it could work well if done correctly regardless of the different hues, infact I think it may add to it. Dont forget that its not a photo thats trying to be reproduced, so no need for the gradients of shades, etc, as the photo is only a monochrome portrial of a colour life image. So if all built replacing the colours with black and greys, real life lighting would give (or should theoretically give) the same gradients, etc.

Personally I think its a fantastic idea with huge mileage. Its sadly too late in the day for me to incorporate it into my existing project though, but the thought of this as a project is something that will now be eating at me for some time....when that happens, I usually end up realising the dream.

I do foresee a problem or 2 though in that if this style of build was incorporated as a bordered section into for example my own colour display, that you would then get colour trains running through it, or black and grey ones running through the colour sections.

The obvious solution to that is to make it as a stand alone project. A working running one would be marvelous, but I think a small static would also look very kewl. Its a huge amount of time investment though for something that may or may not work, however I'd love to see someone have a go at this and if they dont, well who knows in the future, I may just give it a whirl myself.

[mrblue]

talking about this b&w idea, I remember I saw here, not long time ago, a small diorama of a wonderful steam era station with a loco stopping by. I'm quite sure the photo was in b&w and the real brick colors were very close to the gray gradient (but I may be wrong).

maybe someone here could help to find that topic back. I remember it looked like a scene coming out of a painting!

anyway, I agree with the fact that a diorama would get a better chance of good execution than a big or even small layout.

have a nice train lego day

mrBlue

edit: spelling check

Edited June 6, 2011 by mrblue

[Bricktrix]

TheBrickster, sorry forgot to reply.

Thanks for the comments, actually I dont have that much room for the display, even the workshop we have been building this in can only house 5 of the 6 boards at very max laid out. So public displays are really the only time I get to "play" with it properly and see everything running as its been intended. Due to this a factor of guess work has been done and learning experiences have evolved during the course of the build,.....its all getting there though, slowly but surely

[Sir E Fullner]

In my town, I only have two sidings, so I can have a pretty big town. But, at the moment, I just have the small hamlet of Mouthvan.