Today, I Am Mostly...... Constructing A Housing Estate

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Finally got the impetus to make up my Dapol houses and get on with my urban housing estate. 10 houses  (2 more on the way) plus 3 shops. I'm just not quite happy with how they are turning out.

 Dapol OO Scale Semi-Detached House

The Detached House is the easiest kit to bulid. Fits together nicely, the walls also have a textured surface. Only real complaint are the sheer number of windows - too many. If I hadn't had my head down trying to get as many done  as I could yesterday, I would have changed the two side walls for plasticard and saved the spare window frames for scratchbuilding projects.

 "We're doing a promotion in your area"

The Semi-Detached is a lovely model. The front doors are useless, but other than that, a good solid model with a big footprint on the table. Some flash and poorly moulded windows. Happy to buy more of these.

Right Mrs Jones. Thats 2 Gold Top, 1 Ski Yogurt 

and a box of hand grenades

The Shop - whereas it took an hour to put together the walls of all 10 of the buildings above, it took an equal time to do the three shops due to the amount of flash, and that the front and back walls were distorted. Again, too many windows, especially for a shop this size. I'm giving them a shuttered/boarded - looted - appearance with graffiti on the shutters to add further character.

If I'd chosen to build these kits straight from box, I would have finished within the day - as it is construction is dragging - needs perhaps two more days of effort, partly because the corrugated iron plasticard I'm using as boarding has little surface area to attach to the models, so I'm having to use PVA, which needs to dry before moving onto next element.

UPDATE:

Took a fresh look at them this morning and happier with how they look, so pushing on.

 mmm, maybe too distressed?

Cheers
Mark
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