Model railways - my other hobby. What with all the strife in the world filling social media and the news every day it's nice to work on something not military-related.
A few years ago I was lucky enough to drop onto a whole HO scale starter layout including locomotive, rolling stock, an oval circuit of track for only $10 at a Salvation Army shop. I've tinkered with it on and off over the years, and this summer I built a row of shops. These are very much still a work in progress, needing basing, signage, and some touching up and varnishing to stop the printed brickwork from turning into a mess through unexpected moisture.
The centre ones of these came from building templates from a street in Illinois, which I took and adapted. The tower on the left and the green-roofed building on the right I totally scratch built. I may or may not install lighting. We'll see.
Of course I need townsfolk to populate the future community, so I ordered a batch of 100 figures off e-bay.
They're made in China of hard plastic and come in a reasonable variety of poses. Two things became clear immediately - a lack of ethnic diversity and a surprising choice of clothing colours, most quite garish.
Luckily it doesn't take much to do a little cut-and-shut work in rearranging limbs, and the plastic takes ordinary craft paint quite easily.
If there's sufficient interest I may set up a separate blog to cover my occasional fumblings and stumblings through the model railway hobby. Do NOT expect ultra-precise prototypical 'button counting' work. I don't roll that way. ;)
