Realism V's Aesthetics?


goscrewyourselves

goscrewyourselves

I'm the one
To the point - what is more important to you guys - absolute realism, 100% to scale correct OR what looks visual good and possibly not 100% scale correct?
 
@Smudge617 That is why I asked, because I just laid some of the (supposedly) Heavy EZ-Line I bought across the pole cross arms and you can barely see it. Perhaps it is because of the color (black) I don't know. Maybe when I got all four lines on the poles you'd see them better - just not sure what I might end up doing.

By the way, visually good wins with me every time as well :)
 
wombat457 said:
@Smudge617 That is why I asked, because I just laid some of the (supposedly) Heavy EZ-Line I bought across the pole cross arms and you can barely see it. Perhaps it is because of the color (black) I don't know. Maybe when I got all four lines on the poles you'd see them better - just not sure what I might end up doing.

By the way, visually good wins with me every time as well :)
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The only way to get a visually correct anything is to have it 1:1
Any scaling down is a compromise somewhere along the line
 
Trying to scale 1:1 stuff is not gonna happen no matter what scale you are in. I would think that you need to 'fool the eye' in places. Anything smaller than S scale needs more of that fooling. In the case of your wire/insulator problem maybe you could paint a small brown ( or some color ) spot on the pole arm before you attach the wire. Might be enough to get-r-done. A small drop of something ( glue maybe ) would raise that wire up and off of the arm just a tad, but boy, what a PITA to get the wire in the correct place. When there is a will, there is a way; just need to play with it and determine if it is good enough.

Later
 
I am a fan of the "close enough" philosophy. If it visually looks good from 3' away, then it's good enough for me. While I use digital pictures to spot blatant errors, my eyes are the final judge. An example on my layout is vehicles. I got some 1:100 vehicles in a "lot" purchase with mostly 1:87 ones, so I use them in obscure out of the way places by themselves, mainly in the background.
 
Visual is good for me. Model railroading is a compromise in reality . To be correct the minimum curve radius should have a radius of 88 inches. I’m happy with 26 inches I’ve been known to use N scale buildings in the background to force perspective. As to wires I use gray braided fish line shows up much better than black
 
Thanks David - seems as though the majority ( so far) are all about looks with reality coming second.

Sounds to me like most people prefer to enjoy the hobby and what they do, rather than get all flustered because something isn't 100% to scale - and that, to me anyway, is a good thing :)
 
My last layout never got past the track laying stage. I was so wrapped up in electronics and pc operation that i never got to the part you're all discussing here. That was quite a few years ago.

I have a rather large layout area to build and I have a theme. I'm going to lay enough tracks to complete a loop and get right into making a small section kind of real. Simple manual toggle switch controls and move on to creating realism at some level that satisfies me. I can't wait to start the scenery and making buildings.

I'm sure I'll be easily impressed with my beginner skills.
 
Hutch said:
My last layout never got past the track laying stage. I was so wrapped up in electronics and pc operation that i never got to the part you're all discussing here. That was quite a few years ago.

I have a rather large layout area to build and I have a theme. I'm going to lay enough tracks to complete a loop and get right into making a small section kind of real. Simple manual toggle switch controls and move on to creating realism at some level that satisfies me. I can't wait to start the scenery and making buildings.

I'm sure I'll be easily impressed with my beginner skills.
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Don't knock yourself, you'd be surprised at what you can do, admittedly these buggers make it look easy, but they've had centuries of practice. :D
 
I have a bit of an advantage as an artist in watercolors, acrylics and oils. I've air-brushed sunbursts on music instruments I've built. Aside from shoe box dioramas when I was a kid, I haven't made one since.
 
As @Smudge617 said - don't be too hard on yourself and one of the reasons some of the "buggars make it look easy" is because when it is all said and done - it isn't that hard - building kits and doing scenery that is.

Kits come with instructions sooooo, if yu can read and interpret pretty pictures - you can build a kit. It really is that basic. Um well - that of course depends on the quality of the instructions and some of them are atrocious that not even an engineer could read them - but I digress - building kits is easy :)

As for the scenery - that isn't hard either as there is NO wrong way to do it. No matter what you do, scenery wise, it WILL represent to one degree or another, some where in the world - now they may not have found that some where yet BUT it WILL be there some where :) Fact of the matter is that scenery is easy and there really isn't any right or wrong way to create it. If you want to know how something has to look - look outside ...

Now sure, some things can be done a bit better at times BUT that comes with practice and experience. Never forget that we ALL started some where. NO ONE woke up one day and was an expert at this hobby - no one! About the best advise I can offer is if you get stuck doing something - ASK! Simple as that :)
 
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