I'm a "structures" kind of guy. I enjoy choosing appropriate colors for the structures on my layout. Sometimes it is easy when you are following a railroad's painting standards but for masonry commercial structures sometimes I like to see a reference for some ideas.
I recently happened upon this fellow's Flickr albums and was impressed with the quality and quantity of the structure photos presented (almost 50K!) and they're in a decent-sized resolution, too.
https://www.flickr.com/photos/eridony/
While many of the photos are contemporary most show a structure that has been restored or at least cleaned up a bit.
Some examples:
Courthouse with Seperate Clock & Bell Towers by Brandon Bartoszek, on Flickr
Arch Butts Packard Building by Brandon Bartoszek, on Flickr
Wichita's Rock Island Depot by Brandon Bartoszek, on Flickr
Too many signs?
Manhattan Hotel Ghost Signs by Brandon Bartoszek, on Flickr
This one actually looks just like a Walthers apartment building I recently completed:
Hotel Roberts by Brandon Bartoszek, on Flickr
I thought I'd pass this along since I know the subject of choosing brick colors or other building colors will come up sometimes.
Enjoy browsing, Ed
I really appreciate structure and buildings as well Ed. You sure have a lot of them in your link you provided. I seen you even had Minneapolis with the IDS Center in the back as I enjoyed looking through them.
Mixing and coming up with your own brick and stone colors and even the mortar I think is half the fun.
I have quite a few different pictures of structures myself if you don't mind me posting some after your thread starts rolling along here.
TF
Track fiddlerI have quite a few different pictures of structures myself if you don't mind me posting some after your thread starts rolling along here.
I'd be honored, TF! I'll even start off with one myself:
Hotel_city by Edmund, on Flickr
A white glazed porcelain facing on this one...
Cheers, Ed
I find it interesting that brick colors vary by region and time. Brick made in the fifties will be a different shade of color from brick made today. Brick in New England will vary from brick in Arizona. There are too many variables when it comes to masonry products. Raw material, clays, sand color, and how long they were fired all contribute to the final product. Go to any brickyard where bicks are made and look at their stock.
Thank you for the inspiration.
Pete.
gmpullman Track fiddler I have quite a few different pictures of structures myself if you don't mind me posting some after your thread starts rolling along here. I'd be honored, TF! I'll even start off with one myself: Hotel_city by Edmund, on Flickr A white glazed porcelain facing on this one... Cheers, Ed
Track fiddler I have quite a few different pictures of structures myself if you don't mind me posting some after your thread starts rolling along here.
I remember that building Ed, as one of your high rises you were working on and posted in WPF a few weeks ago. If I recall, you were working on a brown faux finish to mimic a brown granite on the street floor, using a piece of foam as the applicator I think. Sets off the glazed porcelain color you selected. Very Nice
I like going to Faribault Minnesota where my daughter and I enjoy walking and looking at the old buildings in town.
Really like the old river bluff stone used for this building. You see a lot of that old stone in the old river towns.
A big fan of this old brick building with the ghost Coca-Cola colors still hiding in the brick. Definitely appreciate the sign faded more then if it was new.
A lot of stone churches in this area and this one is my favorite.
I would have liked to live in a stone house.
A good idea to find a real building to choose colors to use on a model Ed.
It isn't just bricks. Our Washinton Monument got stone from different sources and it i svisually apparent.
EnzoampsOur Washinton Monument got stone from different sources and it i svisually apparent.
Great Photo! I remember seeing that on my first visit to D.C.
The very same thing happened at the Topeka, Kansas shops of the Santa Fe. The stone color changed on some walls when construction work was suspended for a few years beginning in 1861 or so.
I don't have a decent photo of it but I'll see if I can find a mention of it in a video I shot when I toured the shop in 2002.
Thanks, Ed
gmpullman...or at least cleaned up a bit.
"One difference between pessimists and optimists is that while pessimists are more often right, optimists have far more fun."
Wow, that's one heck of a collection of structure photos, and I'm sure I have never seen one quite this extensive (or is obsessive the right word?).
I would say that I do think I see evidence now and then that this fellow has used "color saturation" to varying degrees of intensity. That does not necessarily mean that the structure colors are falsified -- but I do think that the green vegetation looks a bit lush and the blue skies a bit intense compared to what I think of as "normal."
The irony for us modelers is that the standard advice is to tone down colors of our models in an effort to capture the effects of distance.
Maybe an even bigger lesson than color for the modeler in this huge collection relates to texture, varieties of texture, such as brick buildings with substantial stone, or cast concrete, details, ornaments and highlights, and the different textures you see in one city block of retail buildings. Or the differing textures of brick and the role of mortar color.
Some of the brick buildings in this collection could almost be better modeled with brick paper, which of course totally downplays the idea of textures of separate bricks in favor of an over all expanse. Yet other photos of structures, even huge ones, you swear you could count the bricks if so inclined, because they are so sharply defined by the mortar.
I got to thinking about this matter of texture a couple of years ago when I kitbashed some quite old European (and very European looking) kits of residential houses and tried to make them more American-ish looking. I wanted to use them because their footprint did come pretty close to the post WW2 tract houses I remember from my neighborhood.
So before getting out the Zona saw I determined to be more perceptive about small residential ranch houses as I would drive around or take my neighborhood walks.
Somewhat to my surprise the European ranch house kits got it right in almost always including a contrasting part of a wall of a different material -- a frame house with brick up to the windows, say, or frame but with natural stone around the living room picture window, that sort of thing. I also assumed, wrongly, that the fondness for vertical wood siding, rather than horizontal shiplap siding, was European and not American in nature and needed to be changed. It turns out I just was not looking closely enough. And there were plenty of American houses that in common with these European kits mixed horizontal and vertical wood siding.
As it turns out the elements that needed changing were 1) windows and window muntins and 2) the roofing material. Again a matter of texture.
Thanks for finding this interesting resource. There is much food for thought in these photos to be sure.
Dave Nelson
I tend to base my structure colours not only on what I see in this area, but also on areas some distance away, too.
I grew up in Hamilton, Ontario, and a lot of brick structures there were orange. We lived two doors away from my first school...
...unfortunately long gone. Our home, a muti-unit rental was sorta there until a couple of years ago...
...and it originally included a mirror image to the left. Of the one shown, we lived on the ground floor, with three boarders in separate rooms on the second floor, and one of my cousins in the attic.The torn-down attached house had a similar set-up, with a family on the ground floor and relatives, recently come to Canada, on the second floor and in the attic.
Here are some other structures in the city...
American Can, near the north end of the city...
This one was Imperial Cotton, one of many textile mills in the city...
Not too far away was this Westinghouse factory, one of five in the city...
This is just a small portion of the Westinghouse factory in the west end of the city...
...while this one was the headquarters building for Westinghouse Canada, currently being restored for re-use for a number of businesses...
Also in Hamilton was Mercury Mills, a huge factory in the east end of the city...as a kid, I often accompanied my mother (on the bus) when she went to visit one of her sisters, and I always got a kick out of the signage on it. While the real one was torn down years ago, I used a couple of Walthers kits to create my memory of it...
I'd guess that a to-scale model of the real one would overwhelm the layout, as it's size was recorded in acres, not square feet...it was also taller than my model...5 or 6 storeys at least.
Not too far north of Hamilton, there were smaller cities, but many also with factories of various types. While there was lots of orange brick there, too, buff brick (I always referred to it as yellow) was widely used, too...not only on factories but also for homes , businesses and public buildings...
This is a small segment of the Cockshutt Plow Company, in Brantford, Ontario...
...and more of it in red/orange brick, too...
Not too long ago, I started assembling and painting some structure kits that had been languishing in boxes...some for years.Most of the brick ones have only a single colour on the bricks, along with some mortar detail. The doors, window frames, and sills all need to be painted, which I'll eventually get around to.
This one's a pretty-good version of the real Tucketts Tobacco, although somewhat condensed...
The roundhouse at Mount Forest is in orange brick...
...while the Mount Forest train station (a slightly modified Walthers kit) is in a fairly "yellow" version of the buff brick...
...while the Westinghouse Air Brake factory in the same town, another curtain-wall type, is in orange...
The orange and buff building behind the station was Walthers Argosy Books, but I'll be making a sign for it as a hotel/restaurant...
...still needs some weathering...
I picked-up these off the "used" table at a now gone hobbyshop, for a very good price...
All three were in rough shape, falling apart despite copious amounts of tube-type glue, and missing a few parts, too.I fixed them, but other than for a few touch-ups, left them in their original colours.(A couple of my grandkids have decide that SpongeBob and his cronies are the occupants.)
These kits were, I think, garage sale finds by my wife, probably both for a buck-or-so. I believe they're from LifeLike, a bit on the clunky-side, but good enough for background areas...
I replaced some of the windows and details with better ones from Tichy.
This one was originally from Revell (on my first HO layout in the mid-'50s - most of the structures went with the layout when it was sold).I picked up this one at the same hobbyshop mentioned, also for a good price, and enjoyed building it, just as I did with the first one...
This one's a DPM kit, but because it's literally right at the front edge of the upper level of the layout, will be one of the few structures that will get an interior...
I'll name it for a longtime friend and co-worker.
This one was one of my first DPM kits, and while it was rather bland (cast in blue plastic), I decided to add the rear porch and stairway....
I still need to add some fence and landscaping.
I also have a lot of structures needing paint and details...
As for structures with varied board placement, I rank them among my favourites for scratchbuilding, even though most of them are rather small...
Wayne
I like the thread Ed.
Nice pics Gents.
Perhaps some good choice of modeling colors in these architectural structures from the Twin Cities.
Minnesota State Capitol
Saint Paul Cathedral
Minneapolis City Hall
Blair Arcade Flats
Landmark Center
James J Hill house, Great Northern
Old Dakota Courthouse
Pillsbury Hall University
Whoops
Grain Belt Brewery house
Old Main Hall Hamline University
Washington County Historic Courthouse
Stockyards Exchange Building
Images courtesy of Historic Twin Cities, Visit Saint Paul, Wikipedia and Istock
doctorwayneThe orange and buff building behind the station was Walthers Argosy Books, but I'll be making a sign for it as a hotel/restaurant... ...still needs some weathering... I picked-up these off the "used" table at a now gone hobbyshop, for a very good price...
Doctor Wayne has stumbled upon the exact reason I began (yet another) search for structure colors, especially masonry.
The building he mentions was also marketed as the "original" Walther's building located at 1245 North Water St. in Milwaukee. Today it is a beer & burger joint.
North Water Street by Edmund, on Flickr
I have one of the kits that Walthers sold at the time only as a "built-up.
City_Corner-building by Edmund, on Flickr
As you can see the details are quite fine however as a "built-up" there isn't one bit of paint on the styrene at all, a no-no in my book.
Walthers Water Street-door by Edmund, on Flickr
Well, after looking at prying the glazing out and trying to mask off the detailed architectural details I found it was much easier to buy an unbuilt kit so all the fine moldings can be individually painted. I like Wayne's color choices and I'd rather go with more red/brown coloration than the stock cream/tan.
Right now all the parts are primed and I'm sorting out which ones will get what colors.
I'm glad everyone here is enjoying the participation. Great contributions, folks!
Since I model 1900-1905, I like to cruise through the Shorpy Detroit Publishing photos. While they are black and white, they do give a sense of whether the trim was darker or lighter than the base color of the building (in my era darker trim is pretty much the right answer.) A light grey frame building is probably some shade of yellow. Darker colors are generally red, browns and greens. Very little was truly white and a lot of off street or industrial structures had parts that were unpainted wood.
Dave H. Painted side goes up. My website : wnbranch.com
I love this interesting thread. So many types of buildings, brickwork etc.
When modeling buidings, the going back in time to the timeframe being modeled.
Here in the U.K. the brickwork and stone being used in different areas can be a 'minefield' to a modeler.
I model a small section of the City of Leeds. Bricks were made from Leeds Brick; a different color from London Brick or Staffordshire Brick etc..
'Down the road' towards Dewsbury (not ten miles away) buildings are of West Riding stone. A different stone is found in the North Riding.
Travel to the land of the old Border Counties Railway area you find the old buildings are made from stone taken from Hadrian's Wall, (built by the Romans).
Not only is there different colors of brick and stone it became progressively dirtier as the Industrial Revolution progressed. Then 'The Clean Air Act' in the 1950s meant those buildings were cleaned, showing the actual architecture of them.
There is much more to Modeling Railroads than just running trains.
David
To the world you are someone. To someone you are the world
I cannot afford the luxury of a negative thought
gmpullmanDoctor Wayne has stumbled upon the exact reason I began (yet another) search for structure colors, especially masonry. The building he mentions was also marketed as the "original" Walther's building located at 1245 North Water St. in Milwaukee. Today it is a beer & burger joint.
The building in Milwaukee also has had a sort of penthouse added to it up top. And frankly it never looked that nice when it really was Walthers' headquarters -- the old Milwaukee "cream" brick had a way of turning very dark gray when there was so much coal smoke in the air. The classic old cream brick buildings, including this one, were cleaned up -- sometimes using a process that made the brick look more red, but this particular one is a good example today of true cream brick. So if you truly wanted to model Walthers it would be dark and crabbed looking.
The interior was no great shakes either. The sales area was quite small, not a showroom like they have today at their current location. Because it was also their "factory" at the time (and smelled like it), some of what they sold was factory seconds.
The burger place, A J Bombers, is excellent by the way, and unless they have changed they have a totally distinctive way of delivering peanuts to tables. Kids go crazy seeing this. The peanuts are in a sort of big tin rocketship on wires, the bartender "throws" it across the room and when it reaches the end of the wire, the rocket explodes and the peanuts go into a bin, which is where you get your peanuts.
Not recommended for those trying to control their cholesterol however.
PS Relying on memory here but I think that was a Magnusen resin kit before it was a Walthers kit.
Bricks in a given location will tend to have a sameness since they often came from the same source. However businesses would tend to dress up the building fronts and either paint the fronts or use more decorative brick. The standard brick would be used on the sides and back.
I remember Charles Kuralt did one of his On the Road features on an elderly man who had produced many of the bricks for the buildings in his Winston-Salem using a manual operation. He had literally created millions of bricks over the years. One of his first customers was R.J. Reynolds, the man not the company.
I tried to find the On the Road segment about this but could only find this instead:
GEORGE BLACK BRICKYARD..mov - YouTube
I couldn't believe it when I discovered that story had run back in 1971. I had no idea it had been that long since I saw it.