SodorModelRailroading: Project Showcase

Hi and welcome! I am a model railroader and collector, and I enjoy creating scratch-built Thomas & Friends rolling stock, as well as structures and dioramas. Thomas inspired me to make things from scratch to capture the Island of Sodor in various gauges, including HO/OO gauge, and large scale in 16mm narrow gauge. This blog showcases my process based on the lessons learned on making believable models and adding a touch of realism to your collection! Climb aboard for Sudrian Railway Modeling.

Sunday, October 15, 2023

Project Showcase | Clarence the Fish Van

Meet Clarence, an old North Eastern van that carries fish on the Norramby Branchline east of Sodor, although he is known on occasion to be seen on fish trains around the island! He’s a character created by my good friend Mike @theburiedtruck. Here is a synopsis:

Clarence is a van who's been on Sir Topham Hatt's railway for quick some time, and his good nature has earned the engine's trust. He has a quick wit and is always willing to share a joke or a tall tale of the sea to keep up good spirits, even at the annoyance of others! He doesn't often get cross, but when he does he has a very good reason for it, either trucks that are too much of a hassle or engines who are not cooperative. Some of the crews joke he should be converted to be a brake van for being so resourseful keeping trucks in order! Clarence is never phased by other trucks who chatter, gossip and scheme to make all kinds of trouble to the engines, even when they make fun of him for being an old van! He takes it in his stride and it never bothers him, but always quick to put them in their place if pushed too far!

I like how endearing a character Clarence is. While Mike worked with Jake @Jje09 to visualize him in Blender, they kindly let me test how the faces looked in HO/OO scale! All based around the North Eastern van seen in the Thomas show. I'm excited to show you how I made him. Let's get started!

1) Scratch-Building the Van

Back in 2018, I made a North Eastern van kit-bashed from a Bachmann Branchline wagon chassis as a base that I cut down with a track saw to make it shorter. The body is created using a rough pencil drawing as a guide, and I scratch-built the van body using JTT Scenery Products HO scale wood planking and strips of cardstock. I glued the sides together with strips of balsa wood, and used some thinner stripes for the brackets on each end. I found a back of cast metal wagon buffers from eBay UK I glued on a [ - shape styrene strips as buffer beams.

Once I installed the Smiths LP4 chain link couplings, I spray-painted the whole thing with RustOleum camo dark brown. The N E (North Eastern) lettering was replaced with N W to represent the North Western Railway. The final touches came with some light dry-brushing with earthy colored acrylics and scraped pastel powder, but I can recommend Tamiya Weathering Master kits or Dave's Decals weathering powders.

2) Character Design

Here is a render of Jake's custom 3D model in Blender! Jake worked with Mike to find the design he was looking for. He went for a very Sam Elliot look, with a pronounced forehead, thick, bushy eyebrows and a white mustache! He has an old but gentle sailor voice, similar to Willem Dafoe from The Lighthouse film by Robert Eggers. Jake captured his personality very nicely with his renders! Once the finalizing stage was complete, Jake handed the STL files over to Noah @The_lbsc_thomas to print the faces in resin and to scale to HO/OO.

We actually had to do this twice, because the first test batch of resin prints looked too thin. We tried another batch with thicker sides and the facial features were more defined with some adjustments Jake made to the faces. It gave the whole face so much more depth and the painting translated so much better on the faces!

3) Resin 3D Printing and Painting

I gave a light sanding and a thorough clean with warm water and dish soap using a tooth brush to get rid of any left over dust and artifacts left over from the printing process. Then I gave them two coats of RustOleum "chalked" aged gray, covering the corners and detailing and letting each layer dry thoroughly. I wanted to have the eye sockets hallowed out to use eyeballs, but I used a trick with Recollections' plastic adhsive faux pearls from the craft store, painted white with RustOleum "chalked" linen white spray-paint, and 2.2 mm pupils cut by my friend George @bowledout95! But how can I secure the eyeballs to the face and still allow me to have them positioned differently for shots?

I placed the pearls in the face, and glued them to a strip of cardstock! It's secured to the back of the face with blue tak, just like the face itself. I have a few of these with pupils applied with tweezers in different positions so I can use them in various eye directions for specific camera shots. This is a great option for those of you who would want faces on rolling stock with delicate parts or smoke box detail you don't want to take off but stick on for easy removal.

This way, it allows Clarence's faces to be placed on the van without drilling out an open section for the eyeballs to move around. I can place the face right on either end with a flat back, the blue tak used to secure the whole face snugly in place. I am very pleased how good the face looks on my van custom. It gives a classic van such a fresh appearance and a lot of character. The tail lamp is also resin printed by Noah and designed by Jamos @jamostrains!

Now for final decorating! I painted the open mouth and teeth using various acrylics, but for eyebrows, I tried cutting appropriately shaped eyebrows using spare flat white vinyl to apply in place with tweezers. This works so nicely and might have likely been done if these were made for a prop from the show! I like how effective this looks for the face and gives him an expressive appearance.

Above are the finished faces completely decorated and placed on the office table for this behind the scenes-inspired photo with all them together! I like how professional these look under the lighting.

4) Gallery

Here are a couple of shots of him on the layout and the modeling desk! I am very pleased how he turned out. His new faces look delightful on my van and he is a charming addition to my collection, especially for harbor and seaside dioramas! It was a pleasure to work with Mike, Jake and Noah to bring him to life. Maybe I will fix a working light for him to see in the dark when I run the trains at night!

Happy model railroading.

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