HO scale beach towel

[petehuse]

Here is something I don't recall reading about. I have a scene on top of a building with some sunbathers, and want to have a few beach towels laying on the ground. So far I cut a few out of paper, and even made them from photos of beach towels. But they don't look very realistic, more like cut pieces of paper. Perhaps I just don't know what they would look like in reality from the vantage point of a human about 50 feet up in the air... Maybe that would help, look for aerial images of a beach with sunbathers.

Anyone done this with good effect? What material do you suggest?

thanks for the ideas

[edwardsutorik]

I'm having' the feeling that not a lot of people here have done beach towels for their layout.

But you only need one who KNOWS!

Anyway, thinkin' on it:

the little teeny thing has to be: not-glossy, not textured (because any texture you have will be too big), and pretty thin. And have a color pattern of a beach towel.

That sounds a lot like a decal on a very thin substrate. Then maybe sprayed with a dead flat clearcoat.

AND.

I expect the substrate will look better if it isn't totally flat. Maybe a curl here, and a twist there. A lot like a towel, eh?


Looks like a challenge to me, fer shure.

But WOW when you pull it off.



Ed

[bar]

Painted aluminum foil, which also makes nice laundry hanging on a line.

[edwardsutorik]

YES! Foil sounds like the thing.

That's gonna be some pretty fine painting.



Ed

[kentuckysouthernrwy]

Just a painted rectangle, no material. Sunbather, boombox, etc take attention away from fact its just painted.

[John Sheridan]

The plastic guys typically use tissue paper soaked in diluted Elmers glue. Once dry, paint them .

[gmpullman]

When it comes to patterned fabrics, wall treatments, flooring, veneer, paneling, etc. I first check out Textures.com

Patterned Fabrics

For example, Using one of the Persian rug files I found one that makes great Pullman carpeting for heavyweight cars.


IMG_0357_fix by Edmund, on Flickr

Patterned Fabrics



First I open the downloaded image in Photoshop to clean it up or adjust the color or intensity then import it into Corel Draw and adjust the scale.
Sometimes with some patterns I will stretch, flip and combine images if I need a larger image than the original. There are other image manipulating software out there, these are just what I use.

This is also a good method for making tar-paper roofing.
Finally, print it on an appropriate paper. Using fine sand paper and diluted white glue you could add the wrinkles as needed.

Good Luck, Ed

[hoodriver]

petehuse,go to the walthers cat.,look up part#528-15850,then see the enlarged photo!


hoodriver

[hoodriver]

look at walthers cat.#-528-15850

[el3672]

How about just dump some sand on the roof and lay in it.