Back on May 7th 2016 I took a trip to Toledo with fellow model railroader & blogger Chris Ellis and his family for National Train Day. The event was held at the Toledo Amtrak station, formerly Toledo Central Union Terminal.
As I'm sure many people before me have done, I forgot to take the SD card out of my reader and put it back into my camera. So, I was forced to take photos of the terminal with my cell phone.
My intent was to take some nice hi-def straight-on shots of window detail of the station so that I could make printable overlays to attach to my future model of TCUT. The windows of the current TCUT appear to be basically the same as they were when built in 1950, and that is large glass block walls with embedded regular windows and vents. This was done in an effort to commemorate the glass industry in Toledo at the time. It appears that the windows themselves have been updated at some point, but the overall shape and positioning is the same as when the terminal was built.
Another problem besides me forgetting my SD card was the fact that it was difficult to find a place to take straight on shots of the windows because of the trees surrounding the station. What I will end up doing is taking a couple shots of a small portion of the windows and then copying & pasting those shots into larger graphics across each wall of the station.
Yet another problem is that I am guessing on the dimensions of the structure, basing my measurements on the measuring tool in Google Earth. I checked the Lucas County tax website hoping that the building dimensions and a sketch would be there, but there were none and only the total square footage of the building was listed.
Here is a practice run of a graphic I made in Paintshop Pro from generic brick and glass block pictures found on the internet. I didn't spend a whole lot of time on this because it was just practice. Once I can get some photos of the actual structure I will be able to make it much more realistic.
For purposes of a mock-up though, I can print this and attach it to foam core board to make a reasonable representation of TCUT.
As I'm sure many people before me have done, I forgot to take the SD card out of my reader and put it back into my camera. So, I was forced to take photos of the terminal with my cell phone.
My intent was to take some nice hi-def straight-on shots of window detail of the station so that I could make printable overlays to attach to my future model of TCUT. The windows of the current TCUT appear to be basically the same as they were when built in 1950, and that is large glass block walls with embedded regular windows and vents. This was done in an effort to commemorate the glass industry in Toledo at the time. It appears that the windows themselves have been updated at some point, but the overall shape and positioning is the same as when the terminal was built.
Another problem besides me forgetting my SD card was the fact that it was difficult to find a place to take straight on shots of the windows because of the trees surrounding the station. What I will end up doing is taking a couple shots of a small portion of the windows and then copying & pasting those shots into larger graphics across each wall of the station.
Yet another problem is that I am guessing on the dimensions of the structure, basing my measurements on the measuring tool in Google Earth. I checked the Lucas County tax website hoping that the building dimensions and a sketch would be there, but there were none and only the total square footage of the building was listed.
Here is a practice run of a graphic I made in Paintshop Pro from generic brick and glass block pictures found on the internet. I didn't spend a whole lot of time on this because it was just practice. Once I can get some photos of the actual structure I will be able to make it much more realistic.
For purposes of a mock-up though, I can print this and attach it to foam core board to make a reasonable representation of TCUT.
If you do it like Lance Mindheim, making a mockup from foam core board could end up being the actual model of the Terminal.
ReplyDeleteI've found even the measurement tool (which is so much harder to find now) in maps.google.com can be very accurate.
Your Paintshop Pro example is a great start can't wait to see what you could do with photos of the real thing.