Lighthouse / Mac Tower model kit

Many moons ago, F&F were commissioned by the Lighthouse to produce a model kit of the original Mackintosh designed building - which was once the home to the Glasgow Herald. Sadly, the Lighthouse no longer sells these kits, but I'm happy to announce I now have a limited number of the kits available for sale, and only available directly from F&F - from the

website

, our

Etsy shop

, or even straight from the workshop door.

The kit includes a timber roof for the tower - produced by my dad, no less! - intricate etched details on the facades, and of course comes with comprehensive instructions and a wee tube of glue. When built, it stands at about 20cm/8" high. While more complex than the tenement kit, it does not take any special skills or tools to complete, just a little patience!

Customising a tenement kit

Well, over 3 years since launching the tenement model kit, I've finally got round to customising a model. It was partially inspired by the work of Alan Wolfson - absolutely amazing modelmaking. You can see it here.

I've added a bit more detail than comes standard with the kit, with a pub and a shop on the ground floor, chimney pots, drainpipes, satellite dishes etc etc.

Here's a little bit about how I did it.

First of all, I took my inspiration from my local area. I decided on a shop and a pub, simply named The Shop and The Pub. Usually, when tenements have bay windows above shop units, there's a stringcourse that sits beneath the bottom of the bays, and displays the shop signage. I cut the bay windows down to 3 storeys, and expanded the voids in the wall to then add the shop and pub fascias. These were painted as separate pieces that were glued onto the main wall of the kit, with hand painted signage, and the all important Tennents sign.

The chimney pots are simply thin dowel glued on top of the usual timber chimneys. The window boxes are made of very thin wire, drilled into small plastic strip, and painted appropriately. The drainpipes are plastic rod, glued onto the back wall, and the aerial on the roof made of the same material in different widths. I added the staining on the stonework with very diluted (almost just water) paint. It is quite common to see this staining on stone buildings of this type. It also adds a bit more depth to the colouring. One of my favourite details is the bin bags outside the back door - these are simply scrunched up paper painted black.

Finally, I cut a base of another sheet of card, and painted a kerb (making sure to paint the edges of the card) and paving flags. I used acrylic paints throughout.

Lots of fun, now I'm trying to decide what to do next. Why don't you give it a go?!

Recent work

It's been a bit of a busy time at Finch & Fouracre in the past couple of months. Here's a little bit about what I've been up to!





The main job I've done in the past couple of months was a commission for a private client. The model was a landscape model at 1:2000 of an area of the highlands that is very special to her and her husband - the model was a present for a big birthday! What a lucky hubbie! The client provided me with OS maps, and instructions to make it as detailed an accurate as I could. I got an opportunity to visit the site, and spent an early spring day wandering round, taking plenty of notes and photos to help me out. I felt pretty lucky to have landed this job! The area the model covered included a couple of cottages, a river with a couple of waterfalls, and craggy, tree-covered hills.


The image above shows a waterfall, and the river, which was made using back-painted acrylic.

The house in the context of the model.

I was really pleased to get great feedback from the client, the present went down well! It was a lovely job to work on, as I had plenty of time, and the brief was to go into as much detail as I could, which is something hard to resist as a modelmaker. Putting all those trees in took a long time, mind....

In addition, I made a 1:20 white model of a section of a supermarket for Helen Baldwin Architect recently. This was in some respects a working model, for the team to plan out how the space was going to be used in this complicated area of the store. At the same time, it had to be of a presentation standard, as the architect's client was going to be fully involved in the process.

The model was white, with a large spiral staircase in the middle of the model. Glass was detailed in acrylic, and the stainless steel deli counters were painted to reflect that choice of material.

In between these jobs, there's been some work for students:

And, of course, we've just re-released the ice-cream van model kits!

There's also an interesting collaboration in the pipeline, more details to follow....