We're rather into Steampunk here at Ribbon, and every now and then a project comes along that gives us a chance to incorporate it into our work. RMWeb (the railway modelling forum) restarted their Cakebox Challenge at the start of the year (to model a railway scene in a standard size cakebox dimension of 8x8x6 inches), and I (Ben) got in on the action. The Steampunk Monorail was something that had cropped up in the show I did for the Bradford Industrial Museum about a decade ago, but whilst a station had been sketched, I never had time to build it back then.
The rules of the competition were that it had to contain at least a couple of bits of repurposed scrap or rubbish, otherwise it was open to the imagination and interpretation of the model makers. The majority of the scene was produced with scrap offcuts, and made extensive use of our laser cutter, but I'll do something more detailed for the Model Blog at some point; I just thought I'd put a post up with the results of the two photoshoots I did when the model was built.
Oh for a proper studio... Still, shows the techniques used for the pics- the batteries fit under the platforms when I'm taking pics, the Humidifier sits below the platform next to the tracks, and the sheet of mirrored acrylic helps visually extend the set.
One lot of pictures were taken on a nice sunny day, whilst we were locked down waiting for some Covid test results.
The figures were about the only things specially bought-in for the project (apart from the lights), and are intended for re-use in another project later in the year too. The posters were custom-made for this build, or repurposed images from past projects, to give the station a bit of life.
Top hat and monocle- peak Steampunk?
I was very happy with the daylight shots, but the intention had always been to have working lights and do some night pictures too.
If anything I prefer these pics, they seem to fit the atmosphere of Steampunk a bit more closely.
To my frank surprise, it won the competition, up against some very good and imaginative model-making. The Cakebox tends to bring out some excellent and creative work whenever the competition is run, but this year in particular bought about some brilliant work from people (I think Lockdown seems to have been focusing peoples talents). I genuinely thought this would be too left-field for the majority to take to, but I'm pleasantly surprised it caught peoples attention.
All in all then it was a very fun, nicely contained little build that allowed me to finally do some ideas I'd had a way back, though a few people are asking me when I'll be doing a bigger layout on the theme. Tempting, but Steampunk doesn't tend to suit the limited amount of space I have to hand at the moment, so it might have to wait...
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