Greenmax N Gauge factory kit

After our first game of Axles and Alloys 2 I decided to get some suitable terrain pieces for our post-apocalyptic world. I do have plans for getting some Brigade Models sci-fi buildings, but for A&A I wanted something more low-tech.

After some googling I realised that Japanese N Gauge railroad modeling kits and buildings are a gold mine for making dioramas of this scale, whether you are planning to recreate the Shinkansen, Mad Max, Godzilla smashing downtown Tokyo, or even Doraemon's adventures.

Anyway, the structures in the photo all come out of the factory kit - there is a larger chimney and more pipes and even N scale oil drums which I have not put together.

The kit was really fun to build, less so to spray prime, and a lot more to weather. To decide how to paint them, I googled for pictures and eventually found a photo which I thought captured what I was after:

picture from News Locker 

Rather macabrely, it turned out to be a photo of the Union Carbide pesticide plant that was responsible for the Bhopal disaster more than 30 years ago. I was still a child when it happened, so I never really realised the scale of the tragedy and the toll it still exacts on the people of Bhopal today until I decided to read more about it. Despite this, or perhaps because of this, I decided to proceed with using it as an inspiration for my kit, and I would like to ask the reader to find out more about the incident and how he or she can help the victims who are still suffering the effects decades later.

Another view of the complex

Rear view of the factory showing the pipes leading into the main building

Detail of the large tank and pipes

Another view of the tank

Detail of the smaller tanks

To achieve the sun-faded effect on the roofs and the tanks, I first spray-primed the pieces grey, then brushed white over them. The coverage was uneven, but this contributed to the final effect. Once the white was dry, I applied the pastel colours (blue for the roofs and green for the tanks).

For the rust effect I knew I needed more than one shade, so taking reference from the picture, I first dabbed orange on the tanks with a small piece of sponge, and when that was dry, dabbed red brown within the areas enclosed by the orange dabs, and then a darker brown within the red brown areas. Finally, I gave the whole assembly a brown wash. I am quite pleased with the outcome.

So there you have it - a little heavier than my usual blog post, but sometimes this hobby does force us to examine the darker parts of our history, and perhaps prompt us to ask ourselves what we can do to make things better.