Wednesday, December 4, 2013

Inspiration at the Museum

On our Thanksgiving holiday trip, we took Young Lord , Shadowmoss to see the Duke Energy Holiday Trains display at Union Terminal in Cincinnati, OH.

Union Terminal is a beautiful art deco building which still functions as a train station but also houses several museums.

I found quite a bit of interest inside, but two displays gave me some ideas for wargaming:



The above are trees and hills. I have no doubt that they appeal to almost no one as much as they appeal to me. The step hill is no different than millions of other step hills, but those trees!

How can I resist lumpy blobs of carved wood more toy-like, and durable, than my own craft foam trees?  Not being much of a wood worker doesn't look like a barrier to creating them either.

What follows are two buildings that I really liked - they are basically the same, Power Station's #436 and #435.







Again, I love the toy look. These buildings, or something like them since these models go for $250-$300 on ebay, would work great on my table with 1/32 figures. 

After doing some research, I found they are O scale, which, thanks to this scale and gauge page, I learned corresponds to 1/48 scale. Which got me thinking about commercially available O scale or 1/48 buildings. However, the difference in size for figures is 2.25 vs 1.5 inches. So, the doors and windows might be more under-scale than I'd like. 


Unfortunately, I can't find any pics showing 1/32 figures with 1/48 or O-scale buildings!

Scratch building from foam core is probably far cheaper and a good bit more fun, and I can make the doors and windows to taste. Still, if anyone could point me to such a picture, it'd be appreciated.

The research I did, combined with the train displays also reaffirmed that the toy look is really what I'm after on my table in the larger scale for WWII.

3 comments:

  1. I would imagine that you could easily carve something like those trees out of florist's foam.


    -- Jeff

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    1. You might be right. I've used florist's foam before to make some hills - but i found they "shed" a great deal - little green bits everywhere. I probably should have sealed them, I'm guessing.

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    2. Have you heard of "white glue" (said sarcastically, I'm sad to say). I wouldn't risk a spray since they tend to "melt" so many varieties of foam.

      -- Jeff

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