New Hexagonal turret!

I have just finished the patterns and molds for the 6-sided turret that will be used on the second story of some commercial buildings yet to come. The corner turret will have three 8' tall windows and be hollow of course in which to add furnishings. The next building will be a StoreBox of two stories with the corner turret. One sales room down and two offices up. Footprint will be about 12" square and the interior will have all floors, walls and ceiling coverings ready to place furnishings. Half scale naturally!

Some shots of the new building flats

Here are a few photos of the flats I've been working on. The Barber is finished, however, the Bar has a little ways to go yet. Half scale of course. Everything is done from scratch except a little brick siding on the Bar. The Barber is hand carved. In most cases it isn't worth it to carve unless you are doing some funny things with the courses. Most of the details are cast resin. The Bar is to represent Mesker Bros. stamped metal siding. The Barber is stucco covered bricks with wooden trim. This one is copied from an actual building on the Historic Buildings List.

These are the prototypes for a series of ready-built miniatures that I will be undertaking shortly. No two will be identical and they will be completely finished as shown. Most of the models available will be really room boxes with finished interiors ready to furnish by the new owners.

I am working now on a two story brick affair with a hexagonal turret. The Bar is available and the two story will be next. The Barber Shop is sold. The footprints for the new series of room boxes will be about 9" to 12" wide by 12" deep including the 4" wide sidewalk out front, yielding an interior space of about 7-1/2".

A little background.

I have been building miniatures for about 55 years now, as I've said. Most of my building life has been with model railroads. I manufactured mostly 1/4" scale structure kits for over 30 years. I am slowly exiting that area in favor of dollhouse miniatures. Oh, I am still building my own island railway in the basement here in Atlanta, however, recently I have switched to 1/2" scale. Or rather, my eyes told me to do so! Since this is one of the popular dollhouse scales of half scale, I figured I'd combine the two.

Half scale structures fill up a model railway very quickly, so I almost always selectively compress my buildings somewhat. I will post the progress here of the town area of Caribbean-style architecture. Very colorful with a lot of stucco covered buildings along with roughly framed wooden structures and tin roofs.

I am in the process of starting a line of half scale dollhouse kits and a few parts, such as an upright piano. I am working on developing a new Queen Anne Cottage with four rooms, two up and two down with an open side for access. Most of the detail parts will be my own resin castings to better reflect the multi-level detail.

I am also working on a series of built half scale "flats", wall hangings, and small one to two room commercial structures with interiors ready to detail that are available as new or with a custom weathered finish inside and out. These will be one of a kinds with no two exactly alike. I am now collecting a vocabulary of detail castings of my own for the decorative trim. I love the cast and stamped metal trim of vintage storefronts. Photos soon.

A few of my recent miniatures

Well, it looked like the first post worked, so here I go...

I have been a model railroader all of my life. That's a long time. I like trains, however, I would have to classify myself as a miniaturist as I like all miniatures. My real love is structures. I studied architecture in school for years before graduating from the University of Florida with A degree in Advertising Design. I am newly retired from the Walt Disney Company after spending a lot of my professional career as an Imagineer. My love for structures has finally progressed to 1/2" scale dollhouses although some of my older work is in 1/4" scale. I prefer the detail possible in the larger scale.

Another specialty is aging and weathering. I like the look and implied history of structures modeled as such. I am developing a small line of half scale miniatures that will be offered soon. The first of which is the Small Town Store, shown here.

Scale detail is very important to me. I cannot see installing expensive and custom  furnishings into a simplified and poorly detailed shell. To me, the structure is just as important a component as any furnishings are.

I also like to model from real life. Here is a miniature in quarter scale of Head's Mill in Georgia. It is all built from scratch with some parts cast in resin. This is a shelf or wall miniature and is only a flat.

In future posts I will show what I am working on right now, but it will be a few days yet before I shoot new photos.

This is the first posting test for a new blog about half scale architectural miniatures of my own creation. Let's see if it works correctly. One never knows about these computer illiterate users!