They Like It
Building Facade by bowdidge is licensed under the Attribution - Creative Commons license.
© 2009 by bowdidge
Instructions
Check out my blog (http://vasonabranch.blogspot.com) for more photos and details about building your own model.
I built my model by printing four of each part, then used 1/16" sheet styrene and strip styrene for the rest of the model. To make the line of arches, I cut the side pillar off of two of the pieces, and edge glued all together. You might also design a separate model with the part missing to avoid some tedious cutting. I used plastic cement or ABS for many of the plastic joints, but had problems with some glue joints and fell back to super glue. Solvent-based plastic cements seemed to work better if I filed the surfaces beforehand.
To finish the models, I used vinyl spackle to fill rough surfaces and hide diagonal fill paths. I then used gesso and acrylic gel with pumice (from an art supply store) to get the final stucco-like finish. I painted the parts by spraying them with a warm gray enamel paint from a spray can, then used white gesso mixed with a bit of raw umber to get the warm white finish on the walls.
Interesting details about the parts
Inspired by the Brio track's base, I designed some notches on the back side of the arched piece to resist warping. I managed to print five in a row with little visible warping.
The tower roofline was intended only to be the top of the roof; rather than wait for the whole wall to print, I instead glued this piece onto a 1/16" (1.5mm) sheet styrene. This piece has an inset tab on its bottom edge so there's a better gluing surface.
The storefront needs a vertical fill pattern to look realistic. Diagonally-banded stripes just don't appear very often on real buildings. I adjusted Skeinforge's fill angle attribute to either 0 or 90 degrees until the final external surface had a vertical pattern. I also had to adjust the extrusion width over thickness ratio to get a more solid final surface. I also added extra "trim" pieces at the top and bottom to hide the curves of the extrusion changing directions.
