Scenery model making

[Col. Whipstick]

Hi-dee-hi folks

Finally back in South Africa and reunited with my lego! I will have to leave them all again as I'm only here for a few weeks but I have in mind to make some scenery out of masonite etc and then assemble all my models and take photos before leaving again.

Now in terms of the land and sea I want to create for the Pirate lego I'm wandering whether to initate the original lego lego bases in terms of colour and land, beach, sea ratios'm or whether to do like Lego themselves on all the packaging... create a more natural choice of colours for the model display.

When I done the whole thing should be around 3 metres square so it will be a large archipeligo of land and sea. I'm tending to think I should go natural because the lego bases like that for Sabre Island etc were never really proportionate to the minifigs... the beaches being about 1 cm etc and the colour is very dramatic and instant. The other aspect is if i keep the paint finishes in more natural tones the sets and models will look more enhanced...

I just wanted to see what you guys thought before I go ahead with it all and if you had any other ideas. Basically I'm creating baseplates as these will be easy to fold up and store when I travel again. Would love to create more 3D cliffs and hills etc but these create problems for storage

[Mister Phes]

I'm fascinated because this is something I'm interested in doing myself, not for LEGO purposes but for an upcoming university project where I'll composite miniature sets into live footage.

Will you be able to take progress images Col. Whipstick so we can see what you're upto?

Also do you have any diagrams or concept drawings of what you plan to create so we have a visual representation?

[Mile85]

Hi-dee-hi folks

Finally back in South Africa and reunited with my lego! I will have to leave them all again as I'm only here for a few weeks but I have in mind to make some scenery out of masonite etc and then assemble all my models and take photos before leaving again.

Now in terms of the land and sea I want to create for the Pirate lego I'm wandering whether to initate the original lego lego bases in terms of colour and land, beach, sea ratios'm or whether to do like Lego themselves on all the packaging... create a more natural choice of colours for the model display.

When I done the whole thing should be around 3 metres square so it will be a large archipeligo of land and sea. I'm tending to think I should go natural because the lego bases like that for Sabre Island etc were never really proportionate to the minifigs... the beaches being about 1 cm etc and the colour is very dramatic and instant. The other aspect is if i keep the paint finishes in more natural tones the sets and models will look more enhanced...

I just wanted to see what you guys thought before I go ahead with it all and if you had any other ideas. Basically I'm creating baseplates as these will be easy to fold up and store when I travel again. Would love to create more 3D cliffs and hills etc but these create problems for storage

hmm.. looks like somebody is thinking the same way than I am.. I feel the same way about colours. You should use many colours if have them but I think it's difficult to use them wisely. I mean that, if you use many colours when making a big scenery you'll probably use too much of one colour in one location of your model display. It's hard to make a it balanced..especially if you are doing it this way: "Basically I'm creating baseplates as these will be easy to fold up and store when I travel again." But you can allways rebuild it and add some colours here and there.. Good luck for your project *y* :)

I'm planning to do something similar too. I'm doing the scenery with "classic" colours though, because I don't have much other colours in my collection and I 'don't have enough money to buy that much legos right now..

I just need more blue "sea" baseplates.

[Mister Phes]

Col. Whipstick you said you intend to create your scenery from masonite, how will you simulate water? Will you use standard blue LEGO base plates or do you have another technique in mind?

[Grrr]

On the topic - does anyone know what materials lego used to build it's scenery with, for instance the mountains in this picture (the same material is prevalent in most early 90's models).

I would quite like to get some and use it for my layouts.

[WesternOutlaw]

I would think that Lego uses the same sort of materials as model railroaders- probably styrofoam.

[Lord Admiral Helden Ravensdorn]

I will try to link you all up with some pretty basic model railroading and gaming techniques. Its not that hard, really - All you need is a few supplies. Lastly, masonite is nothing compared to insulation foam and a hotknife.

[Mister Phes]

That sounds awesome Lord Admiral Helden Ravensdorn!

Doesn't masonite come in boards, thus making it difficult to use for 3D scenery?

[Mile85]

I did make many big mountains etc. some timne ago and I used just paper and paste(is this the right word?) I put the paper in water and blended it with powerdrill until it was "loose". Then I mixed paste in it and waited some time and then it's like clay..very easy to mold.. Ofcourse I did make these "mountains" with cardboard boxes first and then I molded them with paper..later you can paint them etc.

I have one very good WW themed mountain and some "pirate" mountains too.. If I can borrow my friends camera I'll try to take some pictures if you like..

[Col. Whipstick]

Thanks for all the replies guys...

Today I bought some paint which is the exact colours of the initial island baseplates, i.e. the green, the blue and the yellow. I've looked at it at great length and whilst it would match perfectly so you wouldn't be able to tell my masonite baseboards from the lego ones I kinda feel all the bright colour would be too much when the whole thing is over 2.5 m squared. The colours I do choose however have to be flat as I can't afford to be buying millions of different tints etc. I think I'll take the 'lego coloured' paints back to the store and get more natural or sedated tints.

Another problem with matching lego's designs is that the beach strip on the Sabre Island, Forbidden Island type base plates was always too limiting, granted the plates are small but as my plates are 60 cm sq. i can afford to be more generous in my beaches. I think I will use the exact shade as the creme lego baseplates for the Adventurers Egyptian stuff... this looks natural enough anyway but would replace the hard yellow as sand. Again any other ideas? Maybe I'm just wanting you guys to hold my hand at the paint store. :'-(

[Mister Phes]

I did make many big mountains etc. some timne ago and I used just paper and paste(is this the right word?)

Paste can be the right word. Its a form of think and chunky "glue" in some countries. Do you know which brand of paste it was?

I put the paper in water and blended it with powerdrill until it was "loose". Then I mixed paste in it and waited some time and then it's like clay..very easy to mold..

Advice like this is golden!

I have one very good WW themed mountain and some "pirate" mountains too.. If I can borrow my friends camera I'll try to take some pictures if you like..

Yes, please do!

Thanks for all the replies guys...

Today I bought some paint which is the exact colours of the initial island baseplates, i.e. the green, the blue and the yellow. I've looked at it at great length and whilst it would match perfectly so you wouldn't be able to tell my masonite baseboards from the lego ones I kinda feel all the bright colour would be too much when the whole thing is over 2.5 m squared. The colours I do choose however have to be flat as I can't afford to be buying millions of different tints etc. I think I'll take the 'lego coloured' paints back to the store and get more natural or sedated tints.

Another problem with matching lego's designs is that the beach strip on the Sabre Island, Forbidden Island type base plates was always too limiting, granted the plates are small but as my plates are 60 cm sq. i can afford to be more generous in my beaches. I think I will use the exact shade as the creme lego baseplates for the Adventurers Egyptian stuff... this looks natural enough anyway but would replace the hard yellow as sand. Again any other ideas? Maybe I'm just wanting you guys to hold my hand at the paint store. :'-(

You probably won't be able to get it exactly as The LEGO Group had theirs, but does 100% perfection really matter?

[Col. Whipstick]

Paste can be the right word. Its a form of think and chunky "glue" in some countries. Do you know which brand of paste it was?

Advice like this is golden!

Yes, please do!

You probably won't be able to get it exactly as The LEGO Group had theirs, but does 100% perfection really matter?

You miss my point... I can get exactly the same colours as lego - I have them but I'm deliberately deciding to go for more natural colours by taking back those perfect colours. I've just spent too much time umming and ahhing about the whole thing... Wanted to see if people thought it was better to match lego's colours or go natural islandscape so that the bright colours of the lego models would show up more.

[Mister Phes]

Yes, I seem to have. Awesome! I made a mistake! X-D

But honestly, unless you take pictures of the materials you're using I could not accurately visualise how its going to look. We don't really know what your "natural" colours are because everyone has their own interpretation of what a "natural" colour looks like. These interpretations are going to vary from user to user, some may be spot on, while others will be way off the mark.

Anyway, it would be really helpful if we could see exactly which colours we're choosing between.

[Mile85]

To Mister Phes:

I used ordinary wallpaper paste, when i made my "mountains" It's cheap and newspapers aren't that expensive either :-D So overall, it's really cheap. BTW you should avoid putting pages with lot of colours/pictures in it because if there's too much ink, it won't mix properly.

[Mister Phes]

I don't suppose you have pictures of the end product, Mr Mile?

[Mile85]

I'll have pictures as soon as I got the camera..

next week perhaps..

[Mister Phes]

Ah yes, you mentioned that in an earlier post. Well that's good because I'm curious to see the end result.

[Mile85]

well..I assure you, this technique works ;-) if you cannot do anything with your hands, nothing works :-D

[Mister Phes]

Voice commands still work! Just order the slave to do all the work for you!

[Scouty]

They have material the can stimulate clear water...and...and. All this stuff. Very interesting project. I looked about it, then, today, I saw a folder on Brickshelf of a mini-lego city that used hard-foam and other materials for scenery.

[Col. Whipstick]

Grrr.... Mister Phes

I tried to do a bitmap image to illustrate my whole colour scheme and can't seem to attach it to my post explaining it all!

the limit of 100k doesn't help and i don't have my little image stuck on the web so can't use the url image link...

Help!

[Grrr]

Grrr.... Mister Phes

I tried to do a bitmap image to illustrate my whole colour scheme and can't seem to attach it to my post explaining it all!

the limit of 100k doesn't help and i don't have my little image stuck on the web so can't use the url image link...

Help!

Try saving it as a jpg or gif image - that will reduce the filesize.

Otherwise email it to me *@orcon.net.nz and I can put it up on my webspace.

[Col. Whipstick]

Okay, let's hope this better illustrates my argument about colour.

I have a couple problems with PC's and cameras at the moment so I've very quickly mocked up my point using Paintbrush. Hopefully the bitmap will be attached to this post.

Option 1 illustrates my first Idea to purchase the exact colours of the lego pirate baseplates themselves for my scenery. Those small white squares are Forbidden Island and Sabre/Shipwreck Island baseplates to represent lego's own colour.

Option 2 shows those same official lego baseplates but now what I would do is use the more 'natural' tones for sea, sand and foliage etc. Obviously I can't do anything about the lego baseplates themselves but I felt that option 1 would be too much of a colour explosion and for that matter it wouldn't illuminate the models much as they'd blend too much into the landscape. With the more natural option the models will stand out more and this also allows me to use the scenery for non-lego displays such as model ships etc.

Ignore the scale... this is just to represent the Great Colour Argument as it has become known for me. I would like everyone to vote Option 1 or Option 2.

Grrr... ironic that is your name

Thanks for the tip!

Cast your vote on what the better colour scheme is. *y*

[Mister Phes]

I recommend you get a Brickshelf account Col. Whipstick as it will give you much more than 100K limit for images. I think Brickshelf has a 4MB (don't quote me on that) image limit which I think is too high.

But back to your question...

My eye is drawn to Option 1, obviously because the colours are brighter but I also think that look nicer. Option 2 looks a bit drab and I suspect if you put a MOC in an environment like that it would look too colourful against the gloomy background.

[Mile85]

option 1: has quite accurate yellow and green...but blue is too bright, make it a little bit darker and that's about it *y* And I agree Mister Phes' comment on option 2...