Building of the Week - Something Different

No buildings were painted this week, but I still have another entry. Again these are Leven Miniatures with all the buildings painted by the talented Chris Hudson. I have had to be contented with the support role of doing the station platform, track and groundwork. I have had this project for ages but in the end it took far less time than I had expected, far far less, the embarrassment of it all.

The track and platform arrived in place with nifty bits of paper showing where each building needed placing. This was fortunate as I received from Chris more buildings than I had locations so I would have been in a right pickle.

Lots of drybrushing over a black undercoat for the platform, a total of three different greys used to try and get the finish I had in mind. The texture of Leven creations really responds well to drybrushing so it's not too difficult to get a nice effect.

I dabbed different amounts of grey also between the sleepers for a gravel effect. I did not want to overplay it, especially off the main line as the amount of oil and dirty water etc. that would have gathered on the gravel would have turned a good part of it black or dark grey. For the sleepers I used Mahogany Brown from Vallejo and I drybrushed Oily Steel for the rails. The main line tracks received a heavier treatment of the Oily Steel as they would get more use.

It's a great set of railway buildings, from Station, through kiosks down to lamp huts. It really is a good selection of buildings totalling 12 buildings, three different track packs and a tunnel entrance. 

This is destined to be part of the display stand for Mike when he does the shows and I think it's well thought out and shows off what is on offer. So congrats to Chris for great work on the buildings and especially to Mike for the actual layout work. It made my task so much easier through their hard work.

The nice big carriage works is my favourite building a stunningly low price of £3.00 given the size and heft of it. Whilst this set as it stands looks very English I am betting that adding a few other buildings to the range could make it more European and even Russian, perfect for those Stalingrad games!

I used my basing style, just on a grander scale and it came off well. I have used the static grass a little sparingly as using it to greater effect could well have lost it's effect. Also from spending some of my misspent youth in a shunting yard grass is not something that grows in abundance so seemed to look right to me. I added a few bits between the rails in the shunting yard but none on the main line, again I wanted the appearance to be subtlety different.

Last of all, bomber eyes view as maybe the Luftwaffe come a calling.