If you're looking at a building debating what you could make out of it you could try making photo copies of the walls and then cutting, stacking, or arranging the photo copies into different shapes to see what you can make. If you don't already have it a resource to check out is the book "Kitbashing Ho Model Railroad Structures" the only drawback is some of the models in the book are difficult to find these days...
I'm still trying to get the "parts" to build Gambol, Waite, & Hope
Take it easy
CP
I find in kitbashing that it is a combination of what skills you have as well as what you want/need for the layout. When I yap about skills I'm not meaning you need MASSIVE skills just ---did you slap afew kit buildings together? Maybe painted them? Kind of/sort of? That type of thing.
As for imagination I would say if you're modeling a specific prototype go do the research etc --have fun. If you are freelancing then depending on era -- have fun. It totally depends on what you are interested in doing. Enjoy the process!
Any argument carried far enough will end up in Semantics--Hartz's law of rhetoric Emerald. Leemer and Southern The route of the Sceptre Express Barry
I just started my blog site...more stuff to come...
http://modeltrainswithmusic.blogspot.ca/
The key to kitbashing is you have to know what the buildings is going to look like when its done. Building the straight kit, the manufacturer has done that for you. With kitbashing you have to have the vision yourself.
Then you have to decide if you are trying to duplicate something or just making something up. I would suggest doing some research and looking at pictures of something close to what you are going to build. the first thing to do is to learn to not look at the names on the kits. The kit may say its a farm house, but what it is is a two story claboard structure. So don't think of it as a farm house think of it as two story clapboard structure. I used a Model Power farmhouse to make a yard office and tower. I moved the bay windoe from the first floor to the second floor, enlarged a window on the second floor to become a door and added an outside starcase and landing to the second floor, replaced the shake roof with a 3 tab shingle roof. I then took the garage, attached the garage door end to the building and enlarged one of the side windows to form a door into the crew locker room. Viola', I had Y Tower in Coatesville, PA on the Reading.
As others have mentioned, you first step should be to make a dozen photocopies of the wall sections of your kits. Then sit there with a pair of scissors and tape and reassemble the walls into the shapes you want. I have very few stock buildings on my layouts. Virtually all my buildings are kitbashed, kit mingled or semi scratch built. Back when I was in N scale, I bought 3 Model Power "GE Warehouse" kits. I made a half dozen different buildings by rearranging those pieces.
One of the other keys is that I usually only build half a building. Since my layout is around the walls or has a backdrop on peninsulas, you can only see one side of the majority of my buildings. So many of my buildings are only detailed on 2 or 3 sides. The back sides are sheet styrene (buy 3 ft x 5 ft sheets of .040 or .060 from plastics dealers or sign makers) painted to match the front sides. That way I can "unfold" a building to double its size and only buy one kit, or (as in the case of the GE warehouse) I can use the leftover pieces to build other buildings.
Also look at different scales. N scale bridges make good building parts (roof trusses, overhead crane tracks, etc) for HO buildings.
Have fun.
Dave H. Painted side goes up. My website : wnbranch.com
dave777Have been thinking about doing a kit bashing, and looking for info on what the does and don't s are. Or is it just wide open to my imagination. Thanks Dave
Here is the list of do's and dont's:
Do - anything you want.
Dont - anything you dont want.
Scot
Heres my basic do's and dont's
DO - cut plastic, wood, metal
DONT - cut yourself
Someone said its good to have a clear idea of what the final product will look like...I say are you kdding?
that takes half the fun of it away
Never would have come up with these little tram engine beauties if I had any idea what they would have looked like when I started...trust a little providence when kitbashing, dont be afriad to roll with it when you find your bash taking you away from what you thought you wanted, and towards something better, thats half the fun of kitbashing, new directions and possibilites
Have fun with your trains
vsmith Someone said its good to have a clear idea of what the final product will look like...I say are you kdding? that takes half the fun of it away
A perfect illustration of my point.
dehusman vsmith Someone said its good to have a clear idea of what the final product will look like...I say are you kdding? that takes half the fun of it away A perfect illustration of my point.
iz u dissin my engine? rivets are for toads, scales iz for fish
...I had alot of fun building my little backwoods nightmare, and thats my point.
VSmith; You keep doing what you do...that's the point I keep telling people. I don't want 'paralysis by analysis'. There is no fun in it.
I love kitbashing. I've done it on buildings, bridges and yes--even a BRASS locomotive. In fact, SEVERAL brass locomotives (oh, the HORROR of it, ! ). The first thing is to have a plan, the second is to not be afraid to make that first cut. The third thing is to be patient and follow what you want to achieve very carefully. But it's #2 that REALLY counts!
Tom
PS: VSmith--I WANT one of those!
Tom View my layout photos! http://s299.photobucket.com/albums/mm310/TWhite-014/Rio%20Grande%20Yuba%20River%20Sub One can NEVER have too many Articulateds!
If you want a start, but are not sure about cutting up a building, try a DPM or Walthers modular building. You can download a DPM modular planning packet from this link:
http://www.woodlandscenics.com/detail/homod.pdf
(DPM is now owned by Woodland Scenics)
I would recommend DPM over Walthers for a first time modular kit user. Walthers is a good quality kit, but the way they package the parts is not as easy to figure out as woth DPM.
George In Midcoast Maine, 'bout halfway up the Rockland branch
Hi!
I've been playing with trains since the '50s, and have modified every structure kit I put together. While this is a form of kitbashing, I've gone beyond that in the last umpteen years, and now routinely use parts from various kits to get a finished structure or scene.
My "avatar" is a kitbash of 2 HO Barb's Bungalow kits (Atlas), with parts from a couple other kits (leftovers) and several pieces of Evergreen styrene. This is a pretty good scale model of my Grandmothers Anna Illinois house as it was in the 1950s. It was located next to the IC speedway, and I spent many a boyhood hour sitting on the porch waiting for a train.
Another fun kitbash was putting two Interstate Terminal buildings (Cornerstone) end to end, chopping out a couple of doors, adding a "floor", and ending up with a nice REA terminal. Also did a lot of kitbashing on several kits to create an oil terminal, and put a couple of engine houses together end to end to create one that would handle longer steam locos.
A lot of my efforts are from MR mags inspirations, some are from places I have known, and a few from my imagination. The point is, there are lots of sources for your kitbash projects, and after you do a few you will find yourself with an invaluable asset - a parts box of all kinds of wonderful "leftovers".
I say jump right in, and start small and simple, and work your way up!
Mobilman44
ENJOY !
Living in southeast Texas, formerly modeling the "postwar" Santa Fe and Illinois Central
Most injection molded kits are made of styrene. Make a sketch of the building you want to make, knowing the size and footprint you have available. Look for kits that have walls or roofs that match what you want. Lay the walls out and fill in any gaps with styrene (Evergreen makes all types of styrene strips and novelty sheets like clapboard. You'll need MEK to bond the styrene walls together. Tichy and Grandt Line make excellent window and door castings and are not expensive. Any gaps can be filled in with Testors putty. Once you start buying kits, keep all leftover parts including the sprues the parts are attached to in a box. They make great pipes you can attach to your building.
For inspiration, read Art Curren's and Earl Smallshaw's books on kitbashing. Both men have several ideas that inspired me. The books are loaded with tips.
T.Segro
http://www.tonysegro.com/cola.html
Best suggestion is to keep an open mind when looking at kits and observe real buildings wherever you go for ideas. Try to do what the real builders did and the buildings will be more realistic. Like don't build the first floor with clapboard and the second with brick! Just look around and take lots of pictures for a file to refer to.
Don't you just miss Art Curren? What a master at kitbashing!
Roger Huber
vsmith Someone said its good to have a clear idea of what the final product will look like...I say are you kdding?
vsmithiz u dissin my engine?
waz you dissin my opinion?
I guess it would be and interesting observation whether you think the point I saw illustrated was that the locomotive is unprototypical or the point was that in order to successfully blend a lot of complicated disseparate parts into one model you had to know how they would fit together before you started cutting and that since you are experienced in kitbashing you actually formed a concept of the outcome without "thinking" about it.
Vsmith - Those locos are terrific! Could you post some info about how you built them?
- Harry
dehusman vsmith Someone said its good to have a clear idea of what the final product will look like...I say are you kdding? vsmithiz u dissin my engine? waz you dissin my opinion? I guess it would be and interesting observation whether you think the point I saw illustrated was that the locomotive is unprototypical or the point was that in order to successfully blend a lot of complicated disseparate parts into one model you had to know how they would fit together before you started cutting and that since you are experienced in kitbashing you actually formed a concept of the outcome without "thinking" about it.
Nah I wasnt dissen ya at all, just a different outlook thats all, and your completely right about the not "thinking" about it, one of the blessings of experience,those two were build more on intuition that was based on experience, but I didnt get that experience till I began hacking the styrene, so I guess my point is dont be afraid of it, start cutting, get used to it, it comes easier with each project. So the OP should just make like a Nike commercial and just Do It!
HarryHotspur Vsmith - Those locos are terrific! Could you post some info about how you built them?
Harry, Thanks, I stopped doing "Building Logs" due to lack of interest. But on some I did post some construction pics . Hopefully still enough pics to get an idea of how I built them.
http://cs.trains.com/trccs/forums/p/125184/1414471.aspx#1414471
http://cs.trains.com/trccs/forums/p/138934/1552233.aspx#1552233
http://cs.trains.com/trccs/forums/p/141367/1573527.aspx#1573527
http://cs.trains.com/trccs/forums/p/139182/1552335.aspx#1552335
http://cs.trains.com/trccs/forums/t/106468.aspx
This one has the most complete "log":
http://cs.trains.com/trccs/forums/t/78097.aspx
These engines are from a series of bashes I did using a HLW Mack switcher as a base to build a series of small locomotives based on enclosed frame industrial tram steam locomotives of a type that were once common in Europe, less so here but their still were some. As I've always been dirt poor when it came to the amount of "Hobby Debt" I could afford, I wanted an inexpensive platform to mess around with and at $40 a pop, the Mack was perfect. Now that money is extremely tight, I'm glad I didnt invest a pile of cash in each one.
vsmithNah I wasnt dissen ya at all, just a different outlook thats all, and your completely right about the not "thinking" about it, one of the blessings of experience,those two were build more on intuition that was based on experience, but I didnt get that experience till I began hacking the styrene, so I guess my point is dont be afraid of it, start cutting, get used to it, it comes easier with each project. So the OP should just make like a Nike commercial and just Do It!
I agree that you have to start somewhere. I have found it easier to kitbash something if I had an idea of what I was building. That is in some ways a double edged sword. Once you have a solid grasp of what you want to build, it often makes it easier to fit the kit materials to kitbash from. Once you focus on finding something it makes it easier to recognize the patterns of what you want. If you want a two story wood building to be a yard office then you start 'seeing" all the two story wood buildings in the hobby shop. Which brings us to the downside of the focus. If you focus on the function rather than the "form" then you will miss opportunities. If you focus on a two story wood building (a form) you will see lots of opportunities, if you focus on a yard office (a function) you will miss a lot of opportunities becaue you will exclude candidates that aren't labeled as a "yard office".
For example, between 1900 and 1905 the B&O built a series of 36 ft steel hopper bottom gondolas. I am trying to figure out how to kitbash those. The quick and dirty way is to just put 4 hopper outlets in the bottom of a Bowser GS gondola, but the side panels don't match the B&O cars that close. So I have been looking at gondolas cars to see what I can use. And that was a mistake. As I was typing this it dawned on me that what I was really looking for was a steel riveted rib side car with a certain number of panels in 36 ft. I had just been looking at gondolas. I forgot to look at hopper cars. They are also cars with steel riveted rib sides and by including them as side source material I just about double my options for source material. So I might want to use the cut down floor, ends and underframe of the Bowser GS car with reduced height sides from a hopper car to kitbash my model.