Village Montmorency – Part 1

 

When I wrote the last article about grass, I couldn’t predict it would be once again true. Since Louis-Marie wasn’t there to assemble the cement plant, scenery was once again my main concern and I turned my attention to Village Montmorency, that small neighborhood nestled between D’Estimauville Car Shop and the plant. The apartment buildings there have been kitbashed years ago, but I never completed the any work on them nor their surroundings. Now, things can change.

Cardboard sidewalks are always fun to build

 

The big positive thing to talk about this scene is the fact the fiberboard base is movable. We designed it that way back in the days knowing that applying scenery in such a hard-to-reach corner of the room would be a real nightmare. As a module, it’s much easier to apply scenery, build roads and fences directly on the workbench while sitting.

 

A light coat of spackle to smooth the road surface

While our work session was quite short due to visitors, I was able to model sidewalks, cutters and apply a light coat of spackle on the asphalt road. I still have a few ground details to add such as garage entrances and parking lots, but it was so fast to create scenery in such a way that I will probably reuse that module approach with Monk Subdivision. Chris Mears has been exploring that for a while with his The Shove module and it seems to be indeed a very practical way to approach scenery, particularly on cramp areas or when you try to mock up scenic elements you aren’t 100% sure. Anyway, I’m quite excited at the idea of modelling Montmorency Village and hope to see it come to fruition during the next few months. Also, since most details are hard to see from normal viewing angles, I’m thinking about using some modelling shortcuts to make it faster. Once again, textures and colors will be the most important aspect of it. Don’t expect manholes or small details like that. It will be a more impressionistic work…