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Post by Vermin King on Sept 22, 2015 4:29:22 GMT -9
That was the idea. Think of the old plastic models for railroad scenes in the old west, or the Schreiber paper models. Many of those come in sets of two to three buildings. You can set them up 'as illustrated' or shuffle them around
A question arises. In my research, it seems like in Market Towns throughout Europe, street level is almost always stone, with wooden structure above. The stone may or may not be plastered over. My thinking is that I would like this to match the Carriage House from Papercuts, or at least not look out of place near it. With that in mind, I plan on doing the back wall under the overhang as stone, with the optional arches as plaster over a stone foundation, similar to the front of the carriage house.
I also plan on doing tile roof. It would be similar to the carriage house, but also similar to the Paper Realms houses and the Tinkering Tom Harbor Public House. I wish I could remember the name of the restaurant I like to go to whenever I'm in San Francisco (get to Ghirardelli's and keep walking and you are there). Outstanding seafood and chowder, but the building has the open walkway under an overhang. At the front of the building, the different restaurants have food carts where they sell their wares. At the back of the overhang is the entrance to the restaurant, which is in an old warehouse. I would like to achieve that kind of feel to this
Of course, if someone with more skills than I wants to take up this project, feel free. Many people around here have more skill in their little fingers than I have in my entirety. But I will keep muddling along.
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Post by room101 on Sept 24, 2015 0:27:02 GMT -9
You misunderstand me VK. I was thanking you, not for this potential project, but for the restored memory of a lifetime ago.
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Post by Vermin King on Sept 24, 2015 3:50:49 GMT -9
That works. Has anyone else been doing research on these structures? I find it interesting how the typical patterns of the half-timbers in one region differ from one that isn't that far away. I've been doing most of my research on English Market Towns, but some of those patterns appear in Germany and France (and Liechtenstein, I apologize if I misspelled it). I think I am narrowing down what I want to do here, and have started working on a List B.
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Post by Vermin King on Sept 27, 2015 18:02:46 GMT -9
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Post by Vermin King on Sept 28, 2015 17:06:14 GMT -9
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Post by room101 on Sept 29, 2015 3:20:05 GMT -9
I've taken a couple of pics- struggling to get them from new phone to laptop- hopefully in the next day or so. Here's a similar one from elsewhere on tinterweb superhighnet.
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Post by Vermin King on Sept 29, 2015 5:01:30 GMT -9
That one looks like it is from Chester. Chester is the area that I would like to depict, but I'm not sure if it would have the appeal of something like the Shambles or even Herefordshire. Mirepoix, Dinan, or something from the Alsace region I think would be most popular from comments I have seen here.
It's been interesting reading on Market Towns. To have a market, your town had to have a legal right to have a market. Before the rise of Market Towns, the principal church or a keep would have the most prominent location. Once they arrived, the market would have the principal area, generally at the intersection of two or all of the principal streets. Off these high streets would be the burgh plats or rows. Burgh plats would be the better of the two, with ownership of the plat being held by the merchant or business. Rows were more likely to be leased to the merchants than owned by the actual merchant.
Most of the marketplaces had a market cross, and a market hall. The market cross was to remind folks to deal fairly in their bargaining with the merchants, not the other way around. Because market towns were not rural, they needed these vendors to come in or people would go hungry, so commerce was essential. The market hall is like the office for the market. They would collect fees and assign space and deal with any problems that arose.
I've also been reading about so many historic structures that are gone. Some from fires, which is why there was usually a requirement for at least the lowest levels to be stone or brick. Not that they all burned. Some were torn down during fires to be fire breaks. And many are gone because of progress. The Tabard Inn from Chaucer's Canterbury Tales was the victim of all three. Burned once, torn down to stop another fire, and eventually torn down to make way for new construction. Wych Street in London was also lost to progress. Charles Di ckens home is gone. Sir Isaac Newton's home is gone (but it has a plaque where it once stood). Wych Street also has a plaque dedicated by Terry Jones of Python fame. Wych Street is where John Jacob Astor got his start in business.
Enough rambling, but it has been rather interesting. I'm realizing that I need to up my game on computer design. There are a number of buildings that I have found of similar shape and size. Being able to have a Bridge Street layer, a Northgate Street layer, and an Alsace layer would be pretty nifty. I'm also thinking of doing modular units, boxes that stack. Because the jetties on upper layers are typically not large, how much they extend beyond the layer below, I think one roof could be used for either a two-, three-, or four-floor building. I'm also thinking of having dormers, gables, and oriel windows as modular.
I'm probably thinking too big a project
EDIT -- wouldn't allow me to have a famous author's name
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Post by wyvern on Sept 29, 2015 5:05:36 GMT -9
Here's a similar one from elsewhere on tinterweb superhighnet. 'Tis Bessie Surtees' House in Nyukassell, no less! [That's Newcastle-upon-Tyne for non-Geordies ] Given that medieval town layouts tended to be based on fixed property widths (often determined by pre-existing field boundaries before the towns grew up) in early medieval Britain, it could be possible to create a modular papercraft townscape using a standard street-frontage width (which might vary between towns), so you could more easily slot properties together in a mix-and-match fashion. That's primarily why houses went up and out above ground level (and sometimes were stone built lower to give better support). As the fields, hence later boundaries, were commonly strips of similar width extending back from the road, your house could also extend backwards similarly, or you could start with a double (even triple) width property.
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Post by Vermin King on Sept 29, 2015 5:34:37 GMT -9
And then there were Inns. I want to do a coaching inn. Although I'm not sure which style to use. The coaching inn would have the traditional entry, but also a gated archway that lead to a courtyard where the coaches could trade out horses out of the stables. Early Inns usually had a 'hall' at the back of the courtyard. With the rise in number of coaches, and eventually the mail, these halls were often converted into more stable and equipment space.
Also several of the rows had a small entryway to small shops either off a small alley or courtyard. Some of these were conversions of a Mews (stable area, which became also the location of falconry services. Mew refers to moulting), and some were just built that way. Think of it as a strip mall. I've seen two examples of these that had gates at the main street and on the street behind. They were probably originally coaching inns with small courtyards that wouldn't allow much room for turning the carriage around, so they worked it out where they could be a Drive-thru. Later, shops would take the place of the inn and stable.
These mews would often be used as gathering places to gather news from other towns and be frequented by musicians or drama companies. So, of course, at least one pub would be there. Needless to say, it has been an interesting study.
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Post by Vermin King on Sept 30, 2015 13:35:19 GMT -9
I forget when The Talbot Inn (originally the Tabard) was eventually demolished, but I saw this painting by Louise Rayner, a painter in the mid- to late-1800's. She has a lot of paintings of England during this period and used her imagination to picture some from Medieval days. Also found another interesting site, www.lookandlearn.com/index.php
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Post by Vermin King on Oct 2, 2015 18:42:03 GMT -9
I've been collecting images of actual buildings to help me determine what modules would be necessary to create several buildings from one kit. The building I am concentrating on is an inner building on the block that could be used as a corner building. I picture this as being stacked boxes with 'timber strips' surrounding the bottom of the box to allow it to be stacked fairly solidly onto the box below. I think I know what elements I want to include. Took me a while to remember how to use isometric graph paper, so my sketches are looking a bit rough. For the elements, this is what I am looking at: Between the Gables, the Gable Extension, Arches Option, and Oriel Window, I think everyone could build this and come up with a different building. As this can have two or three floors and with Gables, you can have an attic or fourth floor, I think you could have multiple buildings in the same block with the same type of architecture, but you can see that the buildings are individual buildings. Here's a few examples: Now that I'm getting the geometry down, I'm going to take some elements of real buildings to start laying out the different elements of the project. I don't see how Dave and these guys can put out so many quality models. And hey, I don't even know if it will be worth the ink and paper when I'm done. Only one way to find out.
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Post by cowboyleland on Oct 2, 2015 18:50:28 GMT -9
Onwards and upwards!
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Post by Vermin King on Oct 2, 2015 19:10:43 GMT -9
Taking the four sample buildings, I decided an image of this block is in order I suppose, with practice that this becomes easier
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Post by wyvern on Oct 3, 2015 6:06:10 GMT -9
I suppose, with practice that this becomes easier Indeed; worth persevering. When I learnt technical drawing at school, many, many years ago, we didn't have isometric graph paper, just had to draw using set-squares ("triangles" in American-English, I believe), T-squares and rulers on a blank sheet pinned to a drawing board. The 30°/60° set-square gives you the correct isometric angles for 3D views. It certainly helped that my father was an accomplished draughtsman, so the tools were always available at home. I found tech drawing could be quite addictive, but maybe that was just me
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Post by cowboyleland on Oct 4, 2015 5:15:48 GMT -9
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Post by room101 on Oct 6, 2015 3:48:37 GMT -9
@vk: That's exactly what I envisioned. Brilliant concept, and massively extensible.
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Post by Vermin King on Oct 6, 2015 3:58:08 GMT -9
Glad you approve of the approach. I've decided that I eventually am going to do Shakespeare's birthplace, too, and a few other Shakespeare-related buildings, so I'm going to use textures that will reflect Stratford, Warwick, and Henley, even though the architecture is from other areas.
I would appreciate any links you all find. Hopefully, I won't go down too many more rabbit trails on this, but I got on a Shakespeare track last week that was quite interesting. Didn't realize that some of his relatives were involved in the Gunpowder Plot. A lot of interesting stuff there
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Post by Vermin King on Nov 4, 2015 5:49:57 GMT -9
Well, not a dead project, but still working out how I want to do it. As an exercise leading towards this, I've decided to work on a real building, the Harvard House in Stratford-upon-Avon. Harvard House is the one on the right. The Garrick Inn is next to it. I was trying to play with filters to get it to look less photo realistic, but didn't do a good job. As the building had a courtyard behind it, I am working on giving it a backside, and so that it could be stand alone, I'm working on sides, too. Here's the front: The non-rectilinear timbers makes it look crooked, but using the grid function in Gimp, it lines up.
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Post by Vermin King on Nov 12, 2015 19:20:56 GMT -9
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Post by cowboyleland on Nov 13, 2015 4:59:52 GMT -9
Looks good. I think the sides are convincing. Sitting on your keyboard it looks narrower than I was expecting. I'm guessing it is 15' wide?
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Post by Vermin King on Nov 13, 2015 7:47:13 GMT -9
That's about right. I don't know how deep the building goes or what it really looks like from the back, but I know that it used to open onto a courtyard in back
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Post by oldschooldm on Nov 13, 2015 10:28:39 GMT -9
These will SO fold flat!
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Post by Vermin King on Nov 13, 2015 12:38:39 GMT -9
You would have to separate the small ceiling pieces under the jetties, but yes.
After doing my beta build, I found several areas that are too dark and 'non-distinct' that need to be fixed. The roof is held together with three tabs that fit into slots. I think I would prefer having a totally separate roof. Do you have a preference?
There is a pattern to the dark textures. They are either from buildings restored by the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust or from Henley-in-Arden. For warehouses, I think darker (probably a carry over because I see these buildings Post-Industrial Revolution). I also have a preference for dark woods for upscale (probably because I think of pine and oak being used in a lot of cheaper homes in my area). I realize these are my own biases. What do others think?
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Post by Vermin King on Nov 15, 2015 15:01:05 GMT -9
It took a lot longer today to do changes to the texture work on the Harvard House. I'd planned on doing another build of it to show the improvements to the textures. I did some realignment of segments that looked too wonky. In my dark areas, I adjusted contrast, brightness and color, making it look a lot better IMO. On the side that used the typical half-timber style of the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust buildings, I totally took out the original plaster and replaced it with a plaster that has less darkness and dullness, but more character. I added a wood texture to fold under the roof overhang, also. I'm hoping the files will post, if anyone wants to have this. I knew my first version would need adjustments. I like how this looks. And if you want to make changes, it won't hurt my feelings one bit. And you all know me, I like having parts to do lamination. I hope that you like this. At this point, I think I am going to go back and do a few more I-Kubes. I won't make any of those available unless Marcos gives me permission.
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Post by Vermin King on Nov 16, 2015 18:22:47 GMT -9
Okay, forgive the amateur as he is learning the craft. The version above is substantially better than the previous, but for some reason, as I've brightened and enhanced contrast, the doors seem darker than previously. The Gothic windows on the one side are still too dark and non-distinct. I-Kubes will have to wait. I need to get this fixed. I do like the darker roof and the lighter plaster on the 'Stratford side'. I took some photos for comparison. I suppose it is like remodeling your house. You fix one thing and the thing next to it looks worse...
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Post by Vermin King on Nov 22, 2015 15:14:48 GMT -9
Well, while I was working on the Kringle Bunker, I put this aside. Deadlines do help. I gave the Holiday House to my neighbor the fireman, because he's starting to do Elf on the Shelf stuff with his daughter. Quite a nifty conversation. He said it had been a while since he'd seen any of my models, so I went back to the house and got the Harvard House. 'Hey! I've been there, I think. Isn't that the Harvard House in England?' So, I decided to finish getting this to be a useable model. I feel much better about the one side's base and the base of the back, now. I hope someone finds this useful
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Post by Vermin King on Nov 25, 2015 16:15:19 GMT -9
Well, I'm really thinking that I'd like to have the Garrick Inn, the building next to the Harvard House. I'm intrigued by the twin gables, while the main roof goes left to right. I'm trying to decide whether to make a main roof, with two gable roofs, like in my sketch to the left. Or should I make each gable have its own roof, with the main roof being a cap that fits over the two roofs, like the sketch to the right. Or would folks prefer a solid roof in one piece?
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Post by mproteau (Paper Realms) on Nov 25, 2015 16:22:35 GMT -9
I would imagine that the left sketch would be more forgiving than the right, when it comes time to assemble.
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Post by Vermin King on Nov 25, 2015 18:54:57 GMT -9
I was thinking the same thing. Now I know we have a lot of fold-flat momentum going. If I were to go the left method, the left-right roof actually would meet at the top of the short wall. If I have the roof in two sections, meeting at the peak, the basic building would be easily fold-flat. Making the two gables to be fold-flat would not be overly difficult (I think). At least I have an idea on that. If the gable window pieces are connected by a second short wall, with a fold-over slot-and-tab roof on each one, I think this piece could glue to the front and still have everything fold-flat. Is it worth the effort? I think I will pursue the idea as 'an exercise', anyway. I still don't have a satisfactorily cleaned up image of the front to work from yet, so this will be something I come back to after the long weekend.
BTW, the Garrick Inn is the oldest inn in Stratford Upon Avon. Of course, it burned in the early 1600's and was rebuilt in 1621. Been remodeled a few times before the current restoration that took it down to the 1621 timbers.
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Post by Vermin King on Nov 26, 2015 4:39:03 GMT -9
I saw this type of a gable on a vintage model, where the roof of the gable and the gable itself are one piece. They had the tab on the roof edge and the slotted tab on gable front. I reversed it since I think it would be a more secure fit this way. This would give the option of leaving off the gables, or you can glue the piece on the front and have a gabled roof that will still fold flat.
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