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Love it or hate it, graffiti is everywhere. So any modern image layout would be incomplete without some.
Stencil art is a recent innovation in graffiti, using templates cut out of card to give sharp edges and repeatable icons. This set contains 13 stencil designs, each one repeated 12 times so the taggers can leave them all over town. They’re printed on clear transfer paper so they can be laid over any background. They will suit OO gauge as large stencils or O as smaller ones.
This wander wasn’t as thorough as it could have been- rain stopped play. So just some stuff on or near Wilmslow Road through Didsbury village. I’ll be getting on my bike and doing more wide ranging wanders later in the year.
This horse themed letter box looks like it’s been sealed up.
“B Oldfield [something] agent & dealer”
I don’t normally include new buildings in my wanders, but I liked the spike which runs down from the peak of the roof through the balconies.
I did a bit of post processing and masking with this one to bring out the colours of the stained glass.
Number 2 Passage.
This is above one of the windows of the Didsbury Police station. I had to stand on the wall in front of their notice board to get a better angle. I shouldn’t tempt fate, but it seems that even then I wasn’t suspicious enough looking to be stopped by cops for photographing.
There were another two of these decorative thingies (I’m going to have to start learning the proper architectural names for stuff) on this house. They looked like they’d both been restored, but they were obscured by scaffolding so I couldn’t get pictures.
I noticed a few of these decorative roof toppers- again, I’ll have to learn the proper name- on houses along Barlow Moor Road.
The full set is on Flickr. Some of the images can be bought as prints from my Qoop store’s Manchester section.
Not much of a wander, compared to my others. I took pictures of a few interesting buildings and details I spotted on the way between the railway station and the model show the other week. They’re on Flickr now.
Prints of the photos in this set can be bought on Qoop.com.
A chain ring clock made from the small chain ring of a mountain bike and a disc which came off a siezed wheel.
I went in a different direction for this architecture trawl.
Before I get to any buildings, here’s what the old railway line looks like now they’ve taken away a load of trees-
I’ve been meaning to get pictures of this building for a while. It’s the Local Board Offices. Board of what, I’m not sure, but it is nice.
    
A little further down the road is the Mercantile Bank of Lancashire, now a solicitor’s offices.
 
On to Burton Road. The bike atop G.T. Blagg’s is cool. And there are what appear to be cane structures for training plants on the roof behind it. I wonder what they grow up there?
I’m not sure how much of the decoration on the Metropolitan is original and how much has been added for atmosphere. It looks nice though.
 
The Jamieson sign is still there. And, despite the gentrification of Burton Road, Hibbert’s continues its slow decay.
 
Back up Burton Road to the last of my targets for the day. I forgot to take the proper name of this school. It is an impressive building nonetheless.
        
Prints of these and other images are available from my shop at Qoop.com.
I’m still not happy with it, and it’s missing blurb on the back and the title and author on the spine, but it’s getting there. I’ll still be unhappy with the version which goes to print, but I’m trying to adopt a policy of getting stuff done and released.
Yesterday I pencilled and inked two pages of Point of Contact. They’re not detail rich, and there’s a lot of shading to be done to them before they’re complete, but it’s better than spending days worrying about layout and stuff. Point of Contact will premiere here on March 1st with a page a week until I’ve got enough pages in hand that I can move it up to two a week.
I’m just limbering up and re-learning Blender, so my first new product at Shapeways is a rework of an existing one. These guns are for mounting on vehicles in sci-fi wargames, so your tanks can be bristling with point defence.
From the same bike that gave you the 42 tooth chain ring clock comes its bigger brother. A clock made from the 52 tooth chainring of an old road bike.
New in my shop is this clock made from a bike chainring. I have another one or two in the works and plan to do more decorative pieces from recovered bike bits as I strip them off old bikes.
Okay, it’s too late to get any last minute Christmas presents, but you could always plan ahead. I’m now selling prints through Qoop, such as Deep, Deep Blue below. Click on the image to go to its selling page, check out all the other images in my store.
I’m putting stuff into my Zibbet shop. I say buy now for Valentine’s because, if you’re as dirty minded as I, stuff like the indecent proposal ring is just the sort of thing you want to be getting for your significant other. Coming in the new year will be chainring clocks (I finally found the right backing board, I just hope it’s still in stock when I go to buy it) and other cycle related products.
Tomorrow I shall be attending the Manchester Model Railway Society’s exhibition. Simultaneously, some of my comics shall be on sale from the Manchester Comix Collective’s table at the Birmingham International Comic Show. Meanwhile I’m creating new models for my Shapeways shop. I’ve set myself a deadline of Monday so I can order stuff to sell at Gamecon ’09 on the 17th.
And if that isn’t enough, I’m almost ready to start the first page on my space comic, which is now titled Point of Contact. I’ve had a few volunteers on Facebook who want their surname to be given to the family who are four of the six main (human) characters. I may just write all the names down on slips of paper and draw them out as I need surnames.
Mondays are my designated 3d designing days, though for the last couple of weeks I’ve been struggling up the steep initial learning curve of Blender. I’ve reached a level where I can create what I want using boolean operations such as union, though that doesn’t always produce printable objects. I have an extra day to dedicate to 3d this week, so I’ll see if I can move on to sculpting rather than gluing.
This Monday I made three bus shelters, which are available from my Shapeways shop-
 
The small shelter without an advertising box comes in a four pack. It needs painting and glazing- acetate should glue easily to the backs of the supports. I may design a map/timetable transfer to go on the incorporated board.
The small shelter with an advertising box comes in a two pack. I may design advert transfers for it, in the meantime you can always print out your own to fit. Again, it will need painting and glazing.
The large shelter is available singly or in a two pack. It’s cheaper per unit in the two pack, but you may need just the one for the stop right outside your station. Painting and glazing required, of course.
I’m going to take a break from model railway stuff for a week or so to build wargaming bits to be sold at the upcoming Gamecon in Manchester.
You can now get Ruby Red as a download from DriveThru Comics for $2. I know it’s not a comic, but it doesn’t easily fit into any of the genre sites on their fiction subsidiary. And it does have illustrations.
My first order from Shapeways 3d printing has arrived. These are some of the bins, which will go out to model railway magazines to be reviewed. There’s another batch that I’m going to clean and test paint.
Only one problem so far- the second sprue of bins on poles broke off at the base of the poles. There seems to be a weak spot, possibly accentuated by the model’s orientation when it was printed.
The plan is to produce a few simple models every week and build up a wide range of street furniture for model railway builders. I’ll be ordering copies of my own products, some of which will go to magazines for promotion and some I will build myself and record here. In fact the first batch should print and ship this week, so next week I’ll be painting bins.
Today and yesterday I designed and uploaded some benches-
  
The cantilever bench comes as a set of five, the other two as sets of four. The price will depend upon which material you use, but includes taxes and shipping charges. There’s a minimum order of $25. None of the models will exceed that individually, but the idea is for you to be able to pick and choose street furniture until you’ve got enough, with enough variety, for your layout.
The benches, and the bins I designed last week, are available from my Shapeways shop.
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