Last year, I visited the excellent Rowland Emett exhibition in Birmingham. I couldn't resist coming away with a souvenir of the day - a Smallbrook Studio kit for "Nellie". Since I'm desperately in need of a project that won't turn into a nightmare, it's been dug out for (hopefully) a quick trip across the workbench.
The kit is moulded in resin and designed to be powered by a Hornby "Smoky Joe" 0-4-0 chassis. Normally I dismiss these things as running like jackrabbits but here, it should be just right.
The resin bits are very cleverly moulded. To add weight, the footplate is full of lead shot and since it's very spindly (a consequence of turning a cartoon into a physical model) the cab front has brass wires incorporated in it. All very neat.
Complementing the kit is a book of instructions including an exploded diagram that has a cartoony element could have been drawn by Emett himself.
Never built an emmet based lit bit built a few small brook O16.5 kits and they have always gone together easily and neatly and are very well designed. It's a shame they don't attend shoes anymore but their revamped website is very nice.
ReplyDeleteI've got one of these tucked away somewhere waiting to be built. I thought it would make the basis of a good little came on an A4 baseboard. The thing with modelling Emett is it takes a lot of skill to capture the spindly elegance of his vision of decrepitude.
ReplyDeleteI'm looking forward to seeing this build. The American model railroader E. L. Moore was a big fan of Emett ( I've written something about it at the end of this blog post: http://www.30squaresofontario.blogspot.ca/2014/09/e-l-moores-legacy-in-21th-century-all.html ). Hope this project is enjoyable for you.
ReplyDeleteTruning a 2D cartoon into a 3D model is very difficult - Emett himself wasn't always that good at it. The full-sized train in the exhibition was brilliant but I prefered the drawings. An interesting challenge!
ReplyDeleteInteresting point about turning 2D cartoons into 3D models.
ReplyDeleteI suspect that many of us have had exactly the same problem - in a slightly different form - if we've roughly sketched some idea for a loco / railcar - and then tried to produce usable scale drawings / cutting templates, based on our sketches.
Perhaps I'm alone in encountering these issues - who knows?
OK - I'm sure that some people would try to make out they've never had such problems - but claim they've still managed to produce beautiful models.
Excellent - let's see their fantastic creations.
Perhaps, this might be the problem with some of them - that they're just that - fantastic - flights of fancy?
I'd really love to be proved wrong on this one - I really would - because, if anyone has really managed to pull off this trick, I'd love to know how they've managed it.
I'd love to be able to produce top link model locos - in next to no time - and with next to no effort.
Sorry - I think I'd better correct that last statement straight away. I'd love to be able to produce reasonable quality model locos - in a reasonable amount of time - with a reasonable amount of effort.
Unfortunately, I'm not holding my breath - but it would still be nice to know how some people make it all look so easy (when it almost certainly is not).