My high school is a one hundred year old building just waiting to be modeled. In my layout i am going to pretty much make a scale model of our main street area. There is a double track mainline and at the back of the layout on a slight hill will be the high school. I am building a scale model using everything i got, i have taken scale measurements and i am using google earth aswell to give me a top view perspective. I have never built a model from scratch before. Any tips?
Also in the back almost as a tribute i am putting my marching band out on the field. I am a big of fan of my trumpet as trains so i want to combine them. I have my drill charts from which i am accurately going to place the figures. I was wondering if anyone has had any experience with this kind of a set up. Does anybody know of any companies that make the figures or should i hand paint them nd make little instruments. If it helps our band has around 120 people.
Thanks in advance,
NYCgirl
Preiser (http://www.discounttrainsonline.com/HO-Scale-Figures-Preiser/HO_FIG_590_1.html)sells well-detailed figures, and they may have band-players. OTOH, their figures are pretty expensive, so a 120-person band is out of the question for all but the nearly unlimited budget.
Do you have a picture of your high school? Modeling different buildings depends on what type of building you want.
Also, if you're interested in something less than $3 per Preiser person, I'm ordering a large lot of figures from a Hong Kong-based wholesaler. Contact me off-board ( by email : texas-pacific@sbcglobal.net ) if you're interested.
You said that you have taken measurements and plan to build a scale model. That is nice, but you
may not want to do this. A scale block can take up a lot of room. You may want to compress it
a little. I think they call it select compression. Say a building is 120 feet wide. Make it 100 or 90
feet wide. You have the measurements, so lay it out and see how much room it takes up.
If the building is at the back of the layout, by making it smaller you force the perspective of distance. If you scale down the HO building to N scale you will still have the ability to buy figures for it.