Modelling an Italian village in N scale from scratch - part 3

2024/05/21

Things are progressing slowly but steadily in Val Dei Pomi (yes, I finally decided on the new name - Gli Pomi was grammatically nonsensical, even in dialect). Next project: the back row, houses B1-B4 in my schedule. They’re at the back so good to try out more methods, to learn more before starting on the prominent showcase buildings at the front of the layout.

First, a mockup:

So that’s why it’s good to make mockups. That’s way too low and too small. Another mockup, this time printed in colour:

The village is in a removable piece of XPS foam, in a wedge shape. Which in hindsight was not too handy - the leftmost building has to be very shallow to fit.

So I decided to make it L-shaped. Which made for some interesting shapes! As usual, designed in inkscape, printed in black and white on a sticky label sheet, put this on 1mm carton and then time for careful cutting.

Adding colour, drybrushing paint with brush and sponge, but also some crayon:

The building that inspired this built has a striking, nice, tight ornamental ‘overlay’ of white stone, sticking out slightly from the wall, and I decided to add this with cream paper. That was tricky to cut, especially the arch. I printed out four shapes, thinking I would need three tries to get it right - but I managed in one go!

That seems to work. Also the blinds, which in this building I didn’t add to the outside but but them in deep recesses - which is prototypical, some houses are constructed like that (and mountain walls are often half a meter thick, or more).

The one open window and the door are from Auhagen.

Starting to take shape:

On to the neighbour then: B2, which has a notary office on the ground floor with a bit of a grand entrance.

As the street slopes, there’ll be stairs to the front door. The definite shape I can only create when the building is in place, but good to try out how it looks. As I’m modelling more or less in the current era, maybe I should add a ramp on the other side. But maybe the accessable entrance is via the back garden.

And this is where they’re planned to be put. Although they’ll be attached to eachother, I’m glad I chose to build them separate. It would have been quite an odd shape, and especially building the roof would’ve been much more difficult if it had been a single construction.

To add a bit more depth to the overall feel, I chose to let the roofs overhang a little more than usual.

Eccoci qua!