u/Throwaway91847817

And thats it for the South West for now! Next map will kick off the Wales Batch.

Point of Note: I believe a large amount of these station buildings are now private property and no longer in railway use, but they still deserve to be drawn as its a beautiful line. It’s named after Tarka the Otter, a fictional character who lived in this area.

Point of note: the line actually passes under, not over, the Treffry Viaduct. Its included as its one of the more notable structures on the line. That first section actually has about 4 viaducts, but theres not space for them all.

Bilingual in both English and Cornish (Kernewek), as all maps for Cornwall will be. St Ives and Carbis Bay stations are boring “platform and shelter” types, so they get their neaby Viaducts drawn instead.

Moving on to Devon and Cornwall next.

This is my very first “proper” model boat. Ive dabbed in simple paper models before but this is my first actual kit. I come from a background of railway modelling, so I have some modelling skills, but never anything with boats.

In hindsight, probably not the best first model for someone who has never made a boat before. Not because of the plastic hull, as although its an unpopular choice apparently, I didnt mind it. My issue is mostly the instructions, or lack thereof. This seems to be a common problem with Billings, having only a few lines of written instructions and a few rough images to guide you. I followed a few build logs to help me.

There’s definitely much for me to improve on here. You cant see in these images but I absolutely ballsed up the deck planking, I hadn’t accounted for the slight curve of the hatches when laying the planks. I had follow a technique Id seen on a build log where someone made a cutout of the deck based on the plans, laid the planks onto that, then laid that on the hull. I must have miscalculated the shape and messed up.

The rigging was also mystifying to me. The kit comes with a 1:1 plan for the rigging and sails, but I still think I messed up a few bits. Its the exact order everything needs doing in that confused me. Im sure to a more knowledgeable person the plans alone are adequate to guide the rigging, but to a complete beginner I struggled. I think I got most of it though. But not as taught as they should be, I know that.

The sails themselves, I didnt sew the lines in, its just pencilled in. The jib is definitely not done properly, I just threaded the lines in and out of the top edge instead of properly tying tiny loops around the line, like I did with the staysail.

But overall I am happy with it. I enjoyed the process and I really like how it looks. Im sure in a few years after I have hopefully made several more ships I can look back at this and see how far I have come. Hopefully.

My next model, currently in progress, is the Endeavour Longboat from Artesiania Latina. This is a proper, fully wooden Plank-on-frame boat, with wonderful, full colour, easy to understand step-by-step instructions which I have endlessly poured over. So far Ive done the planking, filled it and painted it, ready for the interior details. I will try and post this at some point.

They cant all be winners… This line got drawn this early as its a relatively short one.

Just a little visual novel style thing for a little but of story for my OCs, as part of my *University of Alba* world. I’ll probably do more of these, it was fun, and its a good way to get do a little bit of slice-of-life story without too much writing.

My collection of 00 gauge Metropolitan Bo-Bo locomotives from Heljan.

From L-R: No 1 (John Lyon, Wartime Grey), No 5 John Hampden (as preserved), No 8 Sherlock Holmes, No 9 John Milton, No 12 Sarah Siddons (as preserved), No 12 Sarah Siddons (1990s condition), No 19 (John Wycliffe, no nameplate), No 20 (Sir Christopher Wren, no nameplate).

The two that elude me are No 6 William Penn and No 11 George Romney. The locomotives in general show up on Ebay fairly regularly, but these two (and Sarah Siddons 1990s) are pretty uncommon.

I paid between £80 and £130 for all of these, which based on their RRP of £140ish I dont think is too bad.