Post by coaster on Feb 13, 2007 3:12:08 GMT -5
ottoraysing said:
It's time for us to get down to some serious model railroad discussion. 1 What is the one thing that you would change about your layout?
2 How can you better portray our hobby as art instead of just toys?
3 What are the benefits of your current scale?
4 What benefits could be obtained by changing to a different scale?
5 What is the importance in selecting an era and locality before building a layout?
OK, so long as I don't have to be too serious in this discussion for too long. Either that, or that I don't have to take myself too seriously for too long.
1. The one thing that I would change about my layout? Its current location. It's all in my mind right now, which is not a very good place for anything to be.
2. How can I better portray our hobby as art instead of just toys? By not even thinking -- much less worrying -- about creating "art." Most artists I've known in my lifetime have spent far too much time worrying about "what is ART?" and nowhere near enough time getting a life, let alone creating 'art,' whatever it is in the first place. Let me run my trains, build my scenery, get this layout out of its current place (my head, remember from answer #1?); someone else can worry about whether any of what I'm doing is . . . 'art.'
3. The benefits of my current scale? It's got a good beat and I can dance to it. Besides that, it's small enough (N Scale) that I can satisfy myself with a certain level of detail and not get all nuts about super-detailing things that aren't ever going to be seen in the first place.
4. The benefits of changing scales? HO obviously has much more products and variety. Additionally, there may or may not be fewer bugs to work out in new releases. But I've been there, done that, thanks just the same.
5. The importance in selecting an era and locale beforehand? It can keep you from spending a lot of money needlessly. Unfortunately, by the time you figure out that it's best to select that era and locale early, you've already spent all that money needlessly. To some people, though, era and locale can be of primary importance, so much so that every other modeling decision can be traced back to the initial choices of time and place. To some people, that is. I happen to be one of those people.
Good discussion. Glad we had this talk.
Regards,
Paul