A Brick Building from the Ground Up - Part 11

We were on a stay vacation last week getting our yard all cleaned up and ready for summer activities (that is if it ever stops raining around here). So I did very little on the modeling front, except managing to finish the weathering on the DV Ross building.

This was done with a combination of oils, in the form of Ammo's Oilbrushers (primarily Starship Bay Sludge [more brown] and Starship Filth [more gray]) and Pan Pastel Chalks (at this point exclusively Raw Umber Shade). The Oilbrushers went on first providing the darker streaks and lining. After they had dried I went back with a soft brush  and added the Raw Umber Shade. I also applied the Raw Umber Shade to the roof and air vent on top of the building and, generally, any place where I wanted to dirty things up a bit. Another area where I went heavier with the Raw Umber Shade was in the zone where the building sides and stairs met the concrete. It may have gotten a little heavy in a couple of spots but overall I think it came out pretty good, it also helped blend some of those colors and edges together that I had already painted the concrete with.

At this point I'm calling the series done. It certainly could use some other things to dress it up but that will likely have to wait for a while. Things like:

1) Brick liner for the interior roof edges. I bought some printed brick paper that claimed to be HO Scale but was in fact much closer to S and far to large for my purposes.

2) Roof clutter. There really needs to be a lot more going on the roof than that single air vent up there.

3) Fire Escape. either on the side or even on the front, it would add a lot of character.

4) Advertising. Its a brick building with a fair amount of blank space which certainly could use a little dressing up. Since this is a practice piece this is definitely a future project for this kit.

5) Graffiti. Not a huge fan of graffiti but from an artistic standpoint it is a challenge and at least in a small amount would help break up all that brick and stone work.

6) External details. Things like a light over the backdoor, a dumpster and other similar details would bring some life to it. I'll just have to keep my eye out for the appropriate parts.

7) Internal walls. Just to break up the see through effect and maybe see if I can go back and add some glazing to the windows. The roof is not attached so its still possible. I might even be able to go back and add some lighting effects of I felt really motivated about it.

There were definitely some pros and cons to the way I went about working on this. I have to remind myself that this wasn't a complete kit. It was a shallow background structure that I added two side kits and one back kit to. The instructions are okay but I can't really judge them based on what I was actually doing. The components, however, were excellent. Everything fit together the way it should. Some of the pieces, like the security gates and handrails, were pretty delicate so go slow then trying to cut them out.

In the end that building will serve its purpose as a photo backdrop for HO Scale miniatures and vehicles. I may even find away to incorporate it into the Warehouse Row layout.