Small Japanese shops (1/300)

[Viator]

Originally Posted by John Wagenseil

Do you use No. 1/11 th blade to cut out the pieces?
It looks like you have even managed to edge color the tiny cut outs.

I am not sure which size of blades it was, but mostly I use BIG scissors to cut pieces out, and the modeller's blade in type of a surgical lancet only for cutouts and rounded edges. And I use brush pens/markers to colour edges of the wheels etc. In such a small scale it must be done. And for scratch building I often try to buy a paper made of a dyed pulp, not only surface-colored one to avoid white edges.

[Viator]

Tokoname pottery showroom

The variant of the same big traditional wooden building (see the previous one at #66) with another windows and small roofs arrangement and with the entrance in the recessed longitudinal wall. I decided to arrange the earthenware and pottery showroom inside.

One of the important and wide known traditional art of the Japanese masters (as you probably know) is making of the cha-no-yu tea ceremony clay utensils - kyusu pots and chawan tea bowls, as well as the flowerpots for bonsai miniature trees, but the mass production of the bricks and domestic earthenware, especially really huge pots for processing, storage and transport of many kinds of liquids, rice, etc. was one of the most important traditional crafts too and in the previous historical periods there were many areas where the high chimneys of the furnaces dominated the townscape. In the village of Tokoname you can see the preserved original manufactures and you can buy the modern earthenware as well as the traditional one, by one of the still active masters craftsmans, made in the famous style known as Tokoname-yaki, with the tableware pieces glazed outside but raw inside, which allows the tea to infiltrate the clay and the iron ions from the iron-rich clay to penetrate into the solution, securing the unique taste and aroma of the infusion. But even if you are not able to visit Tokoname, you can buy these teapots and bowls everywhere as they are being sold throughout Japan and shipped to other countries. The text on the signboard stated exactly "Tokoname-styled pottery".

(#67)

[Viator]

The last option of the same basic machiya design is a house with the recessed entrance and a balcony in the gable wall.

(#68)

[Viator]

The multi-storey building with loggia-type balconies.

The 15-storey building, a modified design of the above mentioned "Godzilla" set, rectangular top view with one corner trimmed. Few vending machines added near the main entrance but no signboards nor billboards attached. On the rooftop few satellite discs and a GSM antennae set were fixed. For the pilasters between the balconies I used the 2 by 3 mm pine sticks and the mast for a GSM is made of a wooden stick too.

(#69)

[Viator]

The Hexagon

Another multi-flat tall building with the round ground floor outer wall made of glass and really big posters around the top with some manga/anime characters. The walls were in fact made of the scrapped material from the previous building (it was the wall piece replaced earlier with the 3D balconies, printed twice) and the remaining pieces were made from scratch. The cuboid with two opposite edges chamfered forms an inequilateral hexagon (in the top view).

(#70)

[Philip]

They keep getting better and better, don't they?

[Viator]

I hope so

[Viator]

The multi-flat with all the balconies empty looks uninhabited, so I made some experimental laundry to be dried...
I decided to made the "cord" of the thin string drawn of the drying polymer glue fixed by the adhesion to the match sticks frame. It is not as thin as the thinnest copper wire but its thickness could be adjusted to the needs, it is strong enough while fully dried and it looks much better than the metal wire thanks to the transparency. The paper socks, shirts and trousers were glued to the cord with a white/vinyl glue then.
Next time I will try to make balconies more realistic.

[Viator]

Few more Edo-style (early Showa) houses

Finally I decided to put the girl with her laundry on the traditional type of balcony, built into the wooden frame, which still can be found in the historical buildings. I used the template for Yamada furniture shop by jimdofree but I made it 2 m (7 mm in scale) longer to comprise the balcony. I like the old machiya buildings very much although they are difficult to be modelled in this scale: they're pretty complicated with all these window recesses, shutters and numerous canopies.
This building houses the okonomiyaki restaurant (#71).

The second house is a tea store. This model too is a variant of one of my previously built models, with an oriel (a bay) on the rear added and few lesser changes made (#72).

The last one looks slightly strange with higher roof and the second floor walls with shutters looking like made of stone or masonry (while the ground floor is obviously a traditional wooden structure). However after some research I was able to find few similar buildings (see images attached). I placed the bike rental shop there (#73).

[Viator]

Most of you perhaps recognize the shape of famous Tokyo game center known as SEGA Building No 2 in the very center of Akihabara (image 1), now closed (in August 2020). It changed its appearance few times till 2020 and it was often decorated with billboards showing some anime-type characters from the latest computer games (image 2).

The owner of papermodel.jimdofree.com webpage had made its model once in 1/150, slightly shrinked and with no top part, and as usual disguised (named SAGE/GOGI instead of the original SEGA/GIGO) but still well recognizable due to the unique escalator side walls protruding from the glass facade (image 3).

I purchased the original digital model from jimdofree and converted it into the SEGA headquaters in Nekomura, printing it in 1/300, and one more time changing the details: restoring original SEGA logotype but removing the escalators and replacing the remaining signboards with another signboards, copied from photo images of Akihabara or Shibuya (and replacing the orange palette with a blue one), but it still derived some specific from the original SEGA Biru 2.

I add the posters showing the Valkyrie character from the manga Shumatsu no Walkure nicknamed The Record Of Ragnarok, published in 2017 (although I am not sure if the game after this manga was really ever created). On the ground floor I added the Walmart outlet store, and on the 5th and 6th, according to the vertical signboard, you can buy a refrigerator (5th floor) or go on a date with the beloved person of any gender in a discreet cafe (top floor). As usuall I add some basic rooftop electrical and hvac equipment and a roof exit.