Small Japanese shops (1/300)

[Viator]

The Green-Red-Blue residential, images part 2 of 2

[Viator]

And in order to close the scope of the Vector Stock stuff, here you are another variant of the #124, with two little shops in one building.

[Siwi]

The Japanese 'Miniatur Wunderland' keeps growing. There are not many people building anything like these dioramas of an urban neighborhood. It might be worth your time printing (or painting) a sky/cityscape backdrop for photographing these vignettes.

[Viator]

Originally Posted by Siwi

(...) It might be worth your time printing (or painting) a sky/cityscape backdrop for photographing these vignettes.

Thanks! Maybe you are right. The final diorama shall be accessible from both sides, but for the photo images some kind of a background will be useful.

[Viator]

The residential for survivors
1-chome Washinokami, Onagawa, Miyagi prefecture

Subproject Codename: Washinokami-1

The sub-project covering the part of a real residential area for survivors, built after 2011 Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami in the Onagawa town (女川町 / Onagawa-chō), a fishing port in Miyagi Prefecture, badly damaged in the disaster. Subsequently, multiple new residential were built in few districts in order to allow the citizens return to their hometown and their business as soon as possible.

The idea of starting with this particular residential area was one of the Sakamoto Sanda-san models, numbered N60 (and #22 in my diorama set). I found that it was one of the typical/generic buildings built there after the same design. I shared it's photo earlier, however now I decided to give it a new number (#126), because after the research (based mostly on Google Street View images) I found that the N60 model requires many changes. The houses were differentiated too by the engineers while being erected, not only to give them the individual look, but to suit the usable area to the number of the family members, some of them having the first floor extended (I marked it as "type B") in comparison with the basic "type A" as modelled by Sakamoto Sanda (N60), and other having no first floor at all, ground floor only ("type C"). Some houses were built in a mirrored arrangement (marked with an additional "m" on my plan).

I chose one of the two "wings" of a 1-chome Washinokami residential area, which suited the purpose very well and while in 1/300 it can be fitted to the single A4 sheet.

The goal was to make a model of the real thing, including the arrangement of the houses, their design, the unique features (as the shades of plaster, the real location of the air conditioning units or the additional little sheds built by some owners) and surrounding (the park areas and the roads).

To Be Continued

[Viator]

In the meantime I painted more than a hundred figures. One of the most interesting was a female cat cosplayer. Her ears were made of the smallest paper elements I ever used as far (two triangles 0.6 / 0.4 / 0.3 mm glued to the head 0.9 mm in diameter). Then I tried to use the 0.3 mm brass wire for her tail but I failed few times so I finally cut the tail of a 70 g per sqm xerographic paper with scissors, glued as well and painted. I begun to really believe in paper!

[Viator]

Some of other staff and passers-by.

[Don Boose]

Your residential module looks good.

Fascinating information about Washinokami. I can't help but note that although Washinokami (鷲神) literally means "Eagle God," the name, written with alternative kanji (和紙 の 紙) could be translated as "paper' (literally, paper made of traditional paper).

And it is good to know that there is at least one cat woman cosplayer in Nekomura.

Don

[Viator]

Wow! So, Washinokami was a good choice for a paper model! Thanks for your info!

[Viator]

One more time the Nekomura project was delayed due to my other activities... and due to the sudden problems with graffiti artists who appeared as from nowhere in the suburbs and begun to decorate the building walls, fences and even trucks with their less or more acceptable creations!

The city mayor hasn't decided yet if the graffiti shall be removed and the artists punished...