Where do you get project ideas?


Where do you get project ideas?

  • Internet searches

    Votes: 30 52.6%

  • Pictures passed along from freinds

    Votes: 14 24.6%

  • Railfanning

    Votes: 29 50.9%

  • Hobby store

    Votes: 5 8.8%

  • Imagination

    Votes: 32 56.1%

  • I don't do projects, just RTR

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • Total voters
    57
rlundy90 said:
Living near Winnipeg I have a choice of three railroads for ideas CN,CP and GWWD(Greater Winnipeg Water District) which is the one I model. Ron
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Good to see you're still around bud! You forgot you have a few more choices: CEMR, VIA, and BNSFML :)
I get my ideas mostly from memories and pics as my RR is no longer around :(
I also copy things I see from contracting for the RR's from Ontario thru the Rockies.
 
Well I don't know about getting ideas from searching direct, but I do get ideas from other members photos, links etc.
Do a direct copy of their work, well not likely but I'll use their methods and achieved effects to get the result I want. Say I wanted to do a farm scene, well I'd probably download many pictures and by looking at them all I'll determine what my farm scene should look like. Lets say I liked the result of continuing the farm scene into the backdrop, then I'd try to achieve that same effect on mine.
As for now I'm looking at others track plans, and visualizing how some of the ideas would fit into my new to be built layout.
Another source of information is suggestions from the Forums.
Consider the two attached photos, The first is what I had planned, until it was pointed out there had to be a reason for the trestle, or the RR would fill the gorge in so they wouldn't have the expense of maintaining it. Then a tunnel portal at the foot of such a unnecessary trestle was also pushing the envelope.
Well a suggested river (second pic.) fixed all that and I do believe it looked a lot better.

Cheers
Willis
 

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One other category Josh: Books! I have an extensive collection of books on the prototypes I'm interested in, and often go there for modeling information on everything: locomotives, rolling stock, structures, scenery, all of it!
 
To answer the question I used the real location and infrastructure of the prototype in a proportion of 70% and 30% is freelance.
 
Imagination mostly. I use real roads as a model but interject my own imagination, creativity, and planning.

Plus the train room is only so big...

Bob
 
Most of the inspiration for the BAD Western comes from exactly that, bad western movies. Throw in a heaping serving of alcohol-fired imagination and there you have it.
Doc
 
Inspiration...

I receive inspiration from actual or prototype structures or car loads, internet searches (the Google Picture search engine is a Godsend!), and books and magazines.

I've been a model railroader - who models European Railways - since 1979, and the impact of the internet on this hobby cannot be understated. As mentioned above, the Google Picture search engine, which has versions for specific searches in countries like Germany for example, yields a wealth of information, especially of structures.

Heretofore, I would have been left to making telephone calls or letter writing to obtain information. Now I can go to a website, and download a weajth of pictures - and sometimes even detailed drawings - of the object that I want to recreate.

The only limit is my imagination.
 
While ideas come from everywhere, the search is constant for inspiration. At a show last year I bought a box of old Model Railroader magazines from the late 60's and early 70's, including complete years of 1967-68. These are great to read to see where the hobby has been and come from. The letters in the Railway Post Office, old ads for kits you would have to scratch build because they are no longer available, great tips, articles, photos and layouts, and I love the scale drawings of locomotives, rolling stock and structures. I've since found more old MR's and RMC's from the 80's and early 90's. All of this material (some of you may have in boxes somewhere) is all new to me having only started in the hobby a couple of years ago. A great source of information, inspiration, and ideas.
 
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One of the kitbashes (okay the only one I want to do right now) I want to do is based on producing algae with a coal burning power plant to create biofuel. My inspiration on this was doing a paper on algae fuels for one of my classes last semester.

Only problem is, there really isn't any prototypes. I have to freelance how the plant would connect to the growing areas.
 
The little voices in my head tell me what I should build:D:rolleyes: ROTFLMAO:cool: What? you didn't want me to say that? shut up he's chatting with me now!!! you'll get your turn later
 
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sparkyftw said:
One of the kitbashes (okay the only one I want to do right now) I want to do is based on producing algae with a coal burning power plant to create biofuel. My inspiration on this was doing a paper on algae fuels for one of my classes last semester.

Only problem is, there really isn't any prototypes. I have to freelance how the plant would connect to the growing areas.
Click to expand...

Now that is a cool and Green idea!
 
Some of the old magazines have a wealth of information. My goal is to model a specific railroad at a specific time and place, so that gives me more projects than will get done in the next 10 years -- it also narrows the field so my researches are more focused. . . . that doesn't explain why my winter modeling consisted of painting a half-dozen locomotives for a friend's home road.
 
dmeephd said:
Now that is a cool and Green idea!
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there is a whole debate on how "green" it really is. We are just moving CO2 around. It still ends up in the atmosphere, it just is a way to get more out of it. In an ideal system though, you could reuse the same CO2 basically forever.
 
sparkyftw said:
there is a whole debate on how "green" it really is. We are just moving CO2 around. It still ends up in the atmosphere, it just is a way to get more out of it. In an ideal system though, you could reuse the same CO2 basically forever.
Click to expand...

Thank you. I wanted to counter the 'green' concept, but didn't know how without stirring up a frowned upon political debate. This may (or may not) make me unpopular, but green is a color, not a lifestyle.
 
most of project ideas are what I see in my railfanning. I like the odd, unique, strange, unusualy, out of the ordinary stuff. Stuff you dont see produced.

That or i'll think of something crazy to make, kinda like what I thought off earlier today. But putting my thoughts to paper is easy, its putting the paper drawing to cutting of models that gets difficult.
 
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