Well, we’ve done another Modelling The Railways Of Queensland Convention and yet again, it was brilliant!
This was Bridget’s first convention and she had a brilliant time. As ever, there was lots of great info and some simply stunning models to get inspired by. One of the great ones for me was Ken Edge William’s (I am pretty sure) overhead bridge that was under construction and completely built from styrene. Pretty sure I need to make one for our layout now don’t I?
Of particular note was Anthony Vaness’ layout “Dagun”. This small layout is based on the tiny town of Dagun in the Mary Valley (near Gympie). This is Anthony’s first QR layout and it is simply stunning.
The entire layout is designed around a 24 inch radius curve and is essentially, a circle. The radius was chosen because the outer radius of a Peco curved point is 24 inch. The layout is extremely lightweight. It was interesting watching Anthony at pack up time as he just picked the layout up in two pieces and took them to his car… How simple is that!
The majority of the structures on the layout are scratch built.
He began by adding cardboard mock ups into the scenes to test how they would look and then built the structures from styrene.
Anthony gave a talk about his layout at the convention and went into great detail about how he constructed it. Even down to using dirt from the actual location!
One of the real stand out things for me was the trees, Anthony told me he managed to walk into his local Riot Art store… That’s one of those hippy places where people whom have seen an ad on TV for British paints that featured a paintbrush have decided they are now an “artist” and as such they need to find an establishment that can furnish them with $2 items for the bargain basement price of $37.50. That aside, they had a small quantity of trees available, so he bought them at a surprisingly good price.
For me, the small details and the scenery are the stand outs and this layout has given me many ideas for our own layout.
Whilst the entire layout is very simple in it’s design, it’s the details that make this layout simply spectacular.
The only thing we can hope for now is that Anthony brings “Dagun” along to many, many shows so the rest of us can be inspired.
As most of you will be aware, we said goodbye to our beautiful dog and long time companion Connie recently. On our return trip from the Convention, we stopped in to the RSPCA office in Toowoomba… JUST to have a look mind you.
It was whilst “just having a look” that we met Scout… Scout managed to lure us in under the guise of appearing to be a dog… A big dog but a dog nonetheless. He regaled us with tales of his excellent training, obedience skills and sitting abilities… In other words he wagged his tail and licked us… A LOT!
So now we had another dog… It wasn’t until we got home that we worked out that in fact Scout was actually only part puppy and mostly a mixture of dragon and wilder beast. He has an interesting loathing of all things shrub related and has a grand plan to rid the world of ALL shrubs. He similarly is in the process of actually eating our balcony, let’s pause and think about this for a minute shall we? HE SNACKS ON HARDWOOD!
Add to this that Scout is actually stupid. I don’t mean a little boof headed, I mean he makes a glass of water look like a computer! Most of his actions seem to resemble something from a cartoon. That being said, we love our new boof headed cartoon dog and he has worked his way into being a proper member of the Wuiske Asylum.
So now we’re simply getting ready for a fast approaching Christmas, we may have an interesting announcement for the Chrtistmas Adam’s Corner. But as always, we shall see how we go.