May 2000 Issue Villaging in the HO Scale

The biggest difference between villaging in HO scale and the scale of most ceramic light ups besides the size is that HO Scale buildings are usually model kits. So why would you bother villaging in a smaller scale like HO or even N? Besides the fact that you can have a larger village in the same amount of space as a ceramic village. You can also customize the buildings to a greater extent. And then there is the price a building like the refreshment stand featured in this article is only about five dollars. But if that's not enough here is what I think is the best reason ( and this is the reason I do it) it's an awesome way to show off your 1-6x diecast car collection. Including the cars as part of a village scene is much more interesting then lining them up on a shelf.

Take a look at the scene above. It looks like a skyline in the distance, doesn't it? This is actually a shot of one part of my HO Scale Village. There are three buildings in this scene: The Refreshment Stand, the Motel, and the Restaurant.

Let's take a closer look at the refreshment stand (right). The refreshment stand is actually a kit from Atlas Model Railroad. I really like this kit, so I haven't made many changes to it. The two biggest changes are that I painted the tops of the bar stools red, and I installed a light under the canopy. Let's turn on the lights so we can get a better look at this scene (below.)

One of the first things you notice is what happens when you place too much light on the scene. In the bright light you can see the details of everything you are looking at. It's immediately apparent that this is a model scene and those are 1-6x die cast cars. Remember that the idea in building a diorama scene is to fool the eye. The way to fool the eye is by not providing it with an excess of information, and that information for the human eye comes in the form of light.  Remember that when you are planning your ambient lighting for a scene. Don't over light it; it ruins the effect. As you can see, this scene is made up of an HO scale building, some people and some 1-6x die cast cars. (See March Issue for a discussion on these model cars). In this case, all the cars are "Matchbox" and most of them are later models (80's and 90's, even though the model year cars are in the 50's) They are: The '57 Chevy Bel-Air (in the background), the '57 Ford Thunderbird, and the '57 Corvette. The '56 Ford Zodiac convertible (on the road in the foreground) is the only car in the scene actually built in the 50's. The road is made from black art paper (black art paper is better than poster board or some other black papers because it has a grain similar to asphalt and absorbs light with little reflection.) The "dirt parking lot" around the refreshment stand is brown art paper.

The people are Atlas Model Railroad HO scale people. These are purchased as a kit of unpainted figures. Painting the people was actually the most time-consuming task in this scene. One challenge was that the sitting people had to be permanently glued to the barstools to get them to stay put. The good news is that these people are very inexpensive, so you can easily have a large number of people in your village without spending a lot of money. That's another advantage over ceramic villages

The third change I made to the refreshment stand was not to glue the canopy in place. I did this so I could reach the inside of the structure to easily install a lamp and to allow for any modifications I might wish to make in the future. Clearly, this is another advantage of HO scale building kits. In the pic on the left, you see the stand with the canopy removed. This allows you to see how I installed the lamp. It was easy enough to do; I simply soldered a permanent 6 volt miniature lamp to a length of solid copper two conductor wire (speaker wire in this case). Then I wrapped the solid wire around the frame strut in the top of the model and secured it with a piece of tape. The light provides the dual effect of lighting the inside of the canopy and shining down into the structure at the same time. If you have any questions about this article drop me a line at [email protected] or just press here. Webmaster

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