Caesar's Gate

The box art of a surprising childhood survivor! Despite some six moves of home in the space of 20 years, this Airfix playset was somehow spared the culling and disposal that unused and/or unwanted possessions inevitably suffered in the process. I'm sure I must've spent hours assembling and marshalling the figures contained within once upon a time, but that is now too long ago to remember clearly. The box probably hadn't been opened since the mid-1970s.

The dramatic picture shows what seems to be a small skirmish between Ancient Britons and Roman soldiers -- about to be reinforced by a larger force of Romans sallying forth from a fortlet (milecastle on Hadrian's Wall?). Presumably, we cannot see the main body of the Ancient Britons? All designed to stir the imagination! (It obviously worked for me.)

If you look carefully, you can see that the original price is written in pencil either side of CAESAR'S GATE: both 13/6 (thirteen shillings and sixpence) and 67 1/2 p! Given that decimalisation of the UK's currency didn't take place till February 1971, then this box must date from before that.

Remarkably, the contents appear to be complete and undamaged. Even the original instructions are still present, hiding under the snap-together buildings. (I was brought up to take care of my things.) The outer lid shows the expected signs of use and wear, and also some staining at the top where it must have got damp or wet. (Oh dear, I don't know what happened there!)

I have been interested in the Romans for many years -- I still am -- and even at the tender age of ten or so, I knew that the fortlet was a fairly good representation of a Hadrian's Wall milecastle (albeit that the defensive walls would be thicker and the precise ashlar masonry construction would be considerably rougher on the real thing).

My reluctance to part with my old possessions has apparently made this a collector's item now. A quick scan of the internet suggests that it might be worth around £60 (at early 2018 prices) -- although I have also seen examples listed for €150! I would be happy to see it go to a good home if someone would like to make me a suitable offer...

Camera testing

My camera of choice is still the compact Canon Powershot S95, as it is capable of taking some delightful photos in challenging conditions: its small size means it is comfortable to carry around and does not draw attention to itself unlike bigger ``enthusiast'' cameras.

The digital camera market continues to evolve, and the technology enables things that were not possible when film was king. (Usable photos hand-held in near darkness!?) One development that caught my eye is the Micro Four Thirds system -- cameras with the controls and features of DSLRs, as well as a range of interchangeable lenses -- but without the same bulk. The all-important sensor is 30 percent smaller than Canon's APS-C sensor (as used on consumer DSLRs), although this is not as bad as it seems because the aspect ratio is 3:4 rather than the wider 2:3 of the DSLR. So when I became aware of what seemed like a good deal on an Olympus PEN E-PL1 camera package at Jessops in the autumn of 2012, I was curious and unable to resist.

The kit came with the camera and two lenses. The camera has few external manual controls and is clearly aimed at the compact camera user looking to upgrade. However, once you get into the menus, there are a bewildering number of options and things that can be adjusted -- on par with consumer DSLRs. The supplied lenses included the standard wide angle to short telephoto (14-42 mm) zoom for everyday use, and a longer telephoto (40-150 mm) zoom for additional distance. Both lenses produce very acceptable results.

Some five years later, I find that I have taken fewer than 500 photos with my E-PL1 (and around 50 of those were test shots), while my S95 has notched up nearly eight times as many in a similar period of time. Despite the bigger sensor on the Olympus, why would this be? I suspect that it is a combination of the basic point-and-shoot nature of the E-PL1, and the default colour of the E-PL1 -- which I initially found a little overpowering!

Nevertheless, I think I may have finally tamed the colour on the Olympus camera. The image above is the result of a number of incremental adjustments over a couple of years to picture mode, saturation, contrast, and auto white balance correction. Having mounted the long telephoto zoom lens, I set the shutter speed to 1/500 second, aimed the camera and pressed the shutter release button. This is the result -- the first time I have used this lens on a moving subject. (An HST at speed heading west on the former GWR mainline near Denchworth Bridge, on a glorious winter day on 28th December 2017. I understand that the OHLE is not yet live: it looks as though the contact wires need to be tensioned, but this may be an optical illusion?)

I think I need to take the Olympus PEN E-PL1 out with me more often!...

Para's Progress 2

If it is not already obvious, then it should be apparent from these photographs that I am not an expert miniature figure painter! The hobby of miniature figure painting is an absorbing pastime in its own right, and there are a variety of resources available on the internet to provide inspiration and instruction. (Not to mention a number of excellent publications in print.) This however, is another update on my quest to paint an original Airfix 1/32 scale military figure.

Our journeyed figure starts this installment adorned with a grisaille of dry-brushed grey and white over a base coat of black. The next stage is to apply layers of thinned paint that are translucent enough not to cover up the shadow and highlight details. (Some people refer to this technique as Stain Painting; it is essentially the same process as was used to colour Victorian and Edwardian picture postcards.)

Coloured paint will start to bring life to the monochrome figure. General wisdom suggests that it is best to start with the inner layer -- often skin -- and work outwards. So the face and hands were the first things to tackle. I like to start with a pale pink layer (White and Red Ochre), and then glaze that with a pale orange-brown layer (White and Burnt Sienna), possibly finishing off with a glaze of pale milk coffee brown (White and Burnt Umber) to suggest time spent outside.

Using artists' tube paints, I take a small blob of white on the mixing palette and thin it as I see fit with my glazing medium (Galeria matt medium diluted 1:8 by volume with water). To this I add a minute amount of colour to tint it, mixed well, along with a little more glazing medium. I apply the paint sparingly, with a Pro Arte Acrylix size 2 round brush, preferring to wipe it over the surface with the sides of the bristles rather than the tips. If necessary, I will touch the brush to a piece of facial tissue first to ensure that it is not overloaded with paint.

That is the theory anyway. As you can see, I was guilty of (a) using Mixing White (transparent) rather than Titanium White (opaque), and (b) having the brush loaded with too much paint so that it flooded shadow detail and flowed where it was not wanted -- such as on the rifle and between the fingers. The transparent white resulted in poor coverage of the face and hands: I redid the Burnt Sienna and Burnt Umber glazes using Titanium White once I had realised my mistake, but it is lacking the pale pink glaze. I am hoping that darker colours will sort out the unwanted white on the rifle later...

A simple method to test the covering power of the paint, is to use a piece of unwanted printed paper (black type on a white background), and brush over a word of print with the mix first. If the outline of letters can barely be seen, then the mix is too thick and needs to be thinned. Conversely, if the letters are still distinct after a layer of paint, then the mix is too thin and needs more paint. It should be possible to get a paint mix to cover adequately with one application, but achieving the right consistency is easier said than done. It is better to err on the side of too thin and apply at least two layers for even coverage.

The figure's lips were carefully painted with a glaze of dark purplish-pink (Titanium White, Red Ochre and a touch of Ultramarine) using a size 0 Acrylix round brush. I ducked out of doing anything fiddly with the eyes as they are just below the line of the helmet, and are mostly in shadow anyway... A couple of glazes of Burnt Umber with a dash of Titanium White helped suggest brown hair below the back of the helmet.

The battledress trousers are supposed to be British Army WW2 khaki, which is actually a woven blend of green and brown threads, and explains why sometimes it looks green, and sometimes brown. I struggled to mix a satisfactory colour, and tried four different thin layers, applied with an Acrylix size 4 round brush. The last glaze was a slightly thicker mix of Galeria Olive Green and Liquitex Raw Umber, which seemed closest to what I had in mind. But of course the earlier layers will influence it too. I am not going to lose sleep if the colour is not spot-on: it is the impression that I am after.

Things will only get more complicated from here on, as a later installment will reveal...

A white elephant?

On 24th October 2017, the City of Oxford reopened its Westgate Shopping Centre after several years of rebuilding and redevelopment. (Not to mention all the traffic problems and chaos for long-suffering users of public transport!) Apparently it had been nearly 20 years since it was first proposed; demolition and reconstruction did not start until early in 2015. The main mall has been given a makeover, the adjoining 1970s multi-storey car park has been demolished, and in its place the mall has been extended and linked to a new John Lewis store. The first photograph shows a three-quarter view the day before the reopening.

But is it what Oxford really needs? Is it ten years too late? Initial reports said that retail occupancy was around the 50 percent mark, but that was expected to rise in time. There has been a general decline in shops in Oxford city centre since the 1990s, especially of independent businesses catering for more specialised items.

Despite the potential benefits, it has not happened without more heritage loss to the city. The former St Ebbes district, which was levelled in the 1960s to create car parking, has had much of its archaeology obliterated -- including the site of the medieval Greyfriars friary -- when deep foundations were dug for the new developments. Ironically, the early 1970s concrete car park itself is also gone, despite featuring in one of the Inspector Morse episodes! And loss of a number of mature trees did not go unnoticed.

Predictably, some businesses from the main shopping street, Cornmarket, have already relocated to the Westgate Centre, leaving empty premises and boarded-up entrances. (It took years for the site of HMV's large store to be reoccupied.) Every week, Cornmarket Street seems to look more and more down-at-heel -- surely not a good impression for the thousands of tourists who flock to Oxford every year?

It is well known that Oxford City Council does not like motorised vehicles, and discourages them from the city centre as much as possible. (Which would be great if we could all afford to live in Oxford!) It then seems a little curious that a traffic-generating project like a revamped central shopping centre would be given the go-ahead. People tend to prefer to put their shopping in their cars, rather than wrestle with public transport. Or they go somewhere where they can more easily park and shop...

If you think that this sounds like the City Council does not do joined-up thinking, then you could be right! I would like to be proved wrong, but I predict that the refurbished Westgate Centre will not reach its full potential, and Oxford city centre will continue to look shabby and be a second-rate place to shop. Such a waste of potential!

Para's Progress

A brief update on the painting of the Airfix 1/32 scale Second World War British paratrooper figure unearthed nearly four decades ago...

As mentioned in an earlier blog posting, the single primer coat of Ronseal Quick Drying Woodstain was left to dry for at least a week. It was very glossy. It was followed up with a single coat of matt black acrylic car paint from an aerosol can, and left to dry for a further week. (This was sprayed outside in a well-ventilated garage: not a good thing to do inside a house.) Despite being matt black, this also turned out glossy! This was the base coat, forming the shadows. So far, so good, none of the paint had shown signs of cracking or flaking off.

The next stage would be a more challenging test. Using a 1/4 inch flat Pro Arte Acrylix brush, Warm Grey from the Daler Rowney System 3 artists' acrylic paint range was dry-brushed from the head downwards over the entire figure. This formed the mid-tones. The following day, grey was replaced by Titanium White from the same range, and dry-brushing was repeated more lightly to produce the highlights. The figure should now be reminiscent of a black and white photograph.

As noted above, the glossy black shadow finish made adding the grey and white layers more difficult with less of a key to work with, but remarkably the black undercoat remained intact! So the use of quick-drying woodstain as a primer on this polythene-like plastic seems to have been a success (so far).

One downside of the dry-brushing technique is that it shows up any blemishes in the figure -- mould lines, flash, and moulding defects.

Kemilway LMS 4F 0-6-0 chassis

I was recently rummaging through what is known in some circles as my maturing cupboard, trying to take stock of the number of unbuilt model railway etched kits that I have. It was more than I expected. No doubt due to a combination of a policy of buy it when you see it, and an overestimation of how quickly I am able to get things built!

Therefore, the subject of this month's posting is part of that inventory, and was probably purchased for a few pounds from one of the Abingdon (-on-Thames, Oxfordshire) model railway exhibitions in the late 1990s. I already had a Comet Models chassis kit in 00 gauge for the LMS 4F, but I had heard of the name Kemilway back in the 1970s and was curious to find out more about it.

The photograph shows what was contained in the plastic bag that I brought home. There are a surprising number of etch frets and components (compared to what I found in the rather basic Comet kit). The silver-coloured metal is claimed to be nickel-plated brass, and not the harder nickel silver that we are accustomed to today. The long copper-coloured etch at the bottom is phosphor-bronze. A multitude of bolts, nuts, bearings, washers and other small parts fill a small plastic bag. Contained within the superbly typeset instructions running to a number of pages are a couple of lengths of wire and some plastic grommets, shown in the middle.

What stands out, is that this comes from the earliest days of UK model railway etched kits: note the use of the term chemical milled. (The frets are all marked Copyright 1976.) It might be expected that things were a little crude and basic 40 years ago, but not a bit of it! This is clearly a quality production, put together by people who had really thought about what they were doing. The kit was designed to be driven on a fixed rear axle with a motor in the tender, and the leading two axles were compensated with what is effectively an equalised springy beam. It must have been a state-of-the-art kit at the time.

My internet searching has suggested that the story behind this range should have had a happier ending. Tony Dyer and George Pring were the pioneering enthusiasts behind the Kemilway name, but at some point the decision was taken to withdraw the range from sale as apparently a few competing suppliers were copying the kit designs and selling their versions. (This sounds like copyright infringement, but I am not aware of the details.) It seems that George Pring died in unfortunate circumstances; Tony Dyer passed away in 2016.

Nevertheless, the Kemilway Bulleid pacific chassis seems to have been a reasonable seller in its day, evidenced by listings of built examples on eBay. And the Kemilway name lives on.

I would like to think that one day I will find the time to do this kit justice. (Was that a squadron of pigs I just heard fly over?!...)

Buying too much...

I am sure I am not alone in "going overboard" on a hobby, and end up buying items that I will probably never use. In some hobbies with small specialist suppliers, the principle of "Buy it when you see it" is almost essential, as you can never be certain that the supplier will still be trading six months or a year later. To illustrate my excesses, look at the items in this month's posting's photo: a number of Winsor & Newton Cotman watercolour pads, Pro Arte brushes and a couple of Cotman Sketchers' Pocket Box sets. They are all in as new condition. Will they ever be used? I don't know yet...

The watercolour paper pads date mostly from the time I was attempting to dip a toe in the water. I can't remember why I got the large pad of 90 lb Not paper, but the small pad of 140 lb Not paper was bought in case I needed to entertain myself on a day trip to beautiful Quebec City. (I spent a wonderful day with old friends visiting old haunts instead!) The 140 lb Not block is more recent, and seemed like a good idea at the time, but I have since purchased other makes of papers to experiment with.

Many of us like (what seems like) a bargain, so the pack of Pro Arte Renaissance brushes (front) seemed a really good deal for a small selection of Kolinsky sables. Given the convenient pack, it is not unlikely that I will use at least one of them for some detail work in the future. At present though, they are invisibly marked "For rainy day use only".

The medium-sized Pro Arte goat hair wash brush may also get a run out one day. I am not convinced that I am using the ideal wash brush yet, so I have a couple of other wash brushes lined up, and even a household sponge may get the nod. I think I need something that holds a good quantity of water/wash, makes broad strokes, but can also be controlled fairly precisely. Probably too many things to ask for in one brush, especially if I am also expecting change from a ten pound note!

Finally, the pair of Cotman Sketchers' Pocket Boxes (back). As mentioned before, although they have their limitations and faults, I really like them. Therefore, when my favoured supplier had them on special offer, it was too much to resist. I have four of them now, only one of which sees regular use at present. But this gives me options if I want to experiment with other palettes. (Sure, that's what they all say!)