Hooper & Co Diorama

[Anglia105E]

Pat St-Martin...... Ah yes the DeLorean..... that would be the perfect solution!

I would think that anybody who did work at Hooper & Co around 1958 and 1959, when the company closed it's doors would no longer be alive unfortunately.

I do have a contact who not only lives in London, but also he owns three original Hooper cars, 1:1 full size Rolls-Royce and Bentley. This gentleman does have a great deal of detailed knowledge and indeed memories of Hooper's, so perhaps he will be able to comment on the precise colour of the exterior walls. There are no colour advertisements Pat, because in those days it was all done in black and white. Here is my best photo of the building, taken in the early 1950's, probably 1952 and this photograph came to me from the Denver Public Library archives in Colorado USA.

David

[Red318]

2 hours ago, Anglia105E said:

Thanks very much David, and I was wondering what the all purpose filler might do to the foamboard. Of course, I would have tested the filler on some scrap foamboard before attacking the building itself, but your suggestion to use Gesso textured white paint is actually a great idea and very welcome at this stage too.

The colour of the exterior walls on the Hooper & Co building as far as I can make out, is not white but more of a grey or cream concrete type colour, which is why I chose Magnolia for the 1:24 scale exterior walls. With this 1:43 scale version I need to get closer to the correct colour, which is made more difficult because there are only black and white photographs of this building available. All the more modern photos that are in colour show the building as cream when owned by Swaine Aydeney Brigg, and then dark grey as it is now owned by Sharps Pixley. My building needs to be as it looked during the 1950's and before.

I will have a look at ' The Works ' product certainly.

David

I've tried filler and no matter how thin it spreads it does distort the board, sometimes days afterwards and there's no way back.  The Gesso whilst described as white paint is more about getting the texture and once dried can be painted any colour you like.  If you use acrylic Gesso, which most of it is these days you can add acrylic colour directly to the Gesso.  I've not done that as yet but I have found Vallejo Model Colour covers really well and can be thinned and different washes applied over one another.  The range of colours is massive.

[Anglia105E]

David Mitchell..... Today I picked up two 500 ml containers of Gesso textured white paint from The Works, which is only 10 miles from where I live. One 500 ml tub will easily cover the 1:43 scale building, but I am thinking if the result is good then I shall re-paint the 1:24 scale Hooper building as well. What I could do, is to put on a thin black acrylic wash over the white Gesso once it is dry, which would produce the grubby look of the city street walls. Thanks to your word of caution I didn't go ahead and spread filler all over the outer panels of the building, which will have taken many hours of preparation once the windows, lettering and detailing is done. Recently, I have started using Vallejo paints and especially the flesh colours for 1:24 scale figures. As you say, these could be mixed with the Gesso.

David W.

[QbanFam]

You are an amazing artist. Amazing details.

[Anglia105E]

Thank you Yordan..... and I am following your 1953 Chevy 3100 Truck topic with interest.

David

[Anglia105E]

Here are a few photos to show the work in progress with the 1:43 scale Hooper & Co diorama. Also, the first of two Austin FX3 Taxi's arrived today, and this is shown alongside the Hooper Empress Rolls-Royce Silver Cloud I. There will be a second FX3 taxi that is maroon in colour, so will need painting black.

You can see the partition wall being constructed that will form the office area of the ground floor. This also has the access doorway to the vehicle lift that takes motor cars and horse drawn carriages up to the first floor. The crimson red polished floors will have a second coat of crimson acrylic, as well as a coat of yacht varnish to produce the finished shine. The shorter section of the partition wall to the left in the photo, will be folded round to the ninety-degree right-angle position.

All the window apertures have been cut out now, so the next stage is the clear acetate panels behind the window apertures. Decided I shall try 1:43 scale figures from Shapeways to see if they are good enough for the photography later. Thanks for looking everybody and I shall continue posting on this topic while the work is ongoing.

David

[Anglia105E]

Construction work continues on the Hooper building. Here is a mock-up of the ground floor, first floor, office partition wall and the two main outer walls. The office partition wall has a rounded corner to it, and a supporting wooden post on the inside of the corner. Hot glue gun is being used to attach the edges of the foamboard. These images are done with flash photography, but later the diorama will be photographed without flash. The maroon taxi cab is there purely to visualise scale and proportion.

David

[Gramps46]

Exciting progress David.

[Anglia105E]

Thank you Gary...... I have decided to make a second partition wall, because I can see that when a motor car has entered the vehicle lift area there is not sufficient space for the office! Bringing the larger part of the wall further towards the main front wall of the building should put that right. Also, the corner is not a perfect 90 degrees right-angle, so I can do better!

The 1:43 scale telephone kiosk is now completed....... built from a kit of etched brass parts, tin / lead alloy and clear acetate, making it considerably heavier than the balsa wood 1:24 scale telephone kiosk.

David

[Anglia105E]

The second office partition wall that I constructed for the ground floor showroom space has turned out to be much better than my first effort. There are three levels to this partition wall, the lower one is wooden panels, the middle one is pleated white curtains and the top level is window panes. There will be some white acrylic paint going over most of the partition wall and then I shall see how it looks inside the lower floor position. The two Austin FX3 taxi cabs are now both painted black and have some additional detailing done. Picked up a nice 1:43 scale 1954 Citroen 11CV as a diecast model for very little money, so it was quite a lot cheaper than Ebay in this instance.

David

[Anglia105E]

Work is going on with the complicated arrangement of windows in this building. The acetate transparencies have been cut to size and taped into position, ready for the white line painting, when the special Pentel white cellulose paint pen arrives in the post. Having saved all the blocks of foamboard that I cut out of the window apertures, and also having had the foresight to mark each block with a number indicating it's position and orientation, the blocks have been inserted back into their original holes and I shall be able to paint the lines straight across the wall panels, without the clear acetate sheet dipping into the apertures. The vehicle lift door entrance now has a sliding metal shutter, which in a previous life was a flexible protective sleeve that was placed over a Zero Paints bottle. In addition to the complex array of windows that you see in the photos, there is the bay window module that has to be constructed separately, to mount on the outside of the ground floor and the first floor levels.

David

[Anglia105E]

The 1:43 scale 3D-printed figures have arrived from Shapeways in the Netherlands, and these photos show these figures before any painting is carried out. The bald man standing, does fit nicely inside the telephone kiosk and he could turn out to be the proud owner of the Jaguar MK VII in Twilight Blue. There is a seated man on a bench and also a standing lady figure, both of which are printed in smooth fine detail plastic, and this material has a semi-transparent appearance to it.

Painting the 1:43 scale figures will be quite a challenge for me I think, as I found painting the 1:24 scale figures fairly difficult. However, I do want these smaller figures to be an important element of the smaller scale diorama so I must find it in me to produce some realistic scale replicas of real people.

David

[QbanFam]

This is really looking fantastic !! You must have a background in engineering or architecture.

[Gramps46]

Ah the Jaguar arrived, good for you.

[landman]

Those Jaguars, MK 7,8,and 9 just ooze class.

[Anglia105E]

Thanks Yordan, Gary and Pat..... no I don't have a background in engineering or architecture, but when I was a young boy I dreamed of becoming an architect or possibly a car designer one day...... neither of which happened.

I thought  I needed a Jaguar MK IX or maybe a MK VIII, but decided I wanted the MK VII as it has spats on the rear wheel arches, in the very same style as the Jaguar MK I.

Completed the white lining work on all of the window apertures for the two main walls of the building, so now it's all about mounting the acetate transparencies in place, over the window apertures and then applying white acrylic Gesso to the interior of the walls. Sign-writing boards of lettering need to be made up, before the Gesso can be applied to the exterior of the walls. Not too far away from hot glue fixing the partition wall onto the ground floor base.

David

[Anglia105E]

Reached the mock-up stage today, where I could visualise the scale model building with the two main walls standing in place, the ground floor base with the partition wall and the first floor, along with the roof placed on top of the structure. The lighting effect is quite interesting by accident, showing the reflected crimson light on the white walls inside the building from behind. The vehicle lift entrance seems to work, but I'm not sure if I should have the vehicle lift coming up out of the first floor, as I don't have any reference photographs to work from.

David

[Gramps46]

Very impressive indeed.  Please keep us posted on your progress.

[Anglia105E]

Thanks Gary...... There should be some major progress during this coming week if all goes to plan. I am beginning to see this model as a building now, rather than a collection of random parts.

David

[Anglia105E]

Decided to add six wooden beams to support three of the floors. The ground floor and the roof are supported anyway, so this is to provide some means of support and to add an element of strength to the structure. Began painting the black main front door, also the black vehicle lift door and the opening into the ground floor office. Sign writing and white acrylic Gesso are scheduled to happen over the next couple of days. The following mock-up shows the five floor levels in place but not fixed yet. I think the photo number 4495 does have quite a realistic look to it, considering this is a 1:43 scale diorama model.

David

[QbanFam]

1 hour ago, Anglia105E said:

Decided to add six wooden beams to support three of the floors. The ground floor and the roof are supported anyway, so this is to provide some means of support and to add an element of strength to the structure. Began painting the black main front door, also the black vehicle lift door and the opening into the ground floor office. Sign writing and white acrylic Gesso are scheduled to happen over the next couple of days. The following mock-up shows the five floor levels in place but not fixed yet. I think the photo number 4495 does have quite a realistic look to it, considering this is a 1:43 scale diorama model.

David

Your work is looking really, really good. I’m anxious to see the final scene.

[Anglia105E]

Thanks Yordan.... and I shall continue to follow ' Over the Creek '

David

[landman]

Coming right along. I am observing closely should I get the urge someday to do something like this. The process is very interesting to follow.

[Anglia105E]

Many thanks Pat..... this is all new to me, I mean dealing with foamboard as a scale model building material. The 1:24 scale diorama seemed to come from nowhere, so I just woke up one day and started building something out of nothing, and it all came together somehow quite naturally. I chose balsa wood, plywood and four strong corner posts for the Hooper building and then just went with it.

The idea to try foamboard is purely due to me watching a You Tube video of Adam Savage in the United States as he threw together a one day build of his childhood home. He whizzed through the process of slicing and dicing foamboard with his trusty X-acto knife and made the whole thing look very easy. The huge four floor house exploded onto the screen before my eyes, and I knew I had to give it a go myself.

For the most part, I do like the material that I am dealing with and the only downside would appear to be the way it warps and goes concave at the slightest hint of paint. Now that I understand how to counteract this warping tendency, some sort of order is restored. By coating BOTH sides of the foamboard with acrylic paint, or even better, by applying Gesso to at least one side the foamboard panel remains flat and level. The Hooper building will have white acrylic Gesso on both the inside walls and the outside of the walls also. I get into the routine of having heavy books placed on top of the panels overnight, which helps keep them flat.

David

[Flat32]

There is a stiffer version of foamboard called Gatorboard,  Foamboard can also be purchased with plastic coating, pvc I think it is. The common paper faced board can be prepped by sealing it with spray shellac. Zinsser is the brand I use and it comes in white or clear. Two lighter coats instead of one heavy coat, Shellac seals and waterproofs and is good primer. It should prevent warping with subsequent acrylic painting. One could apply the shellac one side at a time if the four corners are pinned down on a flat surface. Once first surface is dry flip it over and pin for the second.

Of course this prep would be done before cutting.

I have no experience with the plastic coated or Gatorboard.