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Friday, January 9, 2015

Modeling a bicycle parking area

Many residents of Tokyo use bicycles for shorter trips in their neighborhoods or to get to the train station. It is common to find a large number of bicycles parked in the areas around any train station.

This photo I found on the web is an example of what I am talking about.  This is right next to the tracks and it looks like there is a station platform in the background.    I wanted to create a similar scene on the Musashi-Koyama modules.




In the August 2013 post Modeling Japanese bicycles I prepared a number of Tomix bicycles and that is mostly what I am going to use to populate this parking area.

TomyTec kit # 095 represents a small, covered bicycle parking area.  While I did not assemble this kit as intended, I did use some of the parts from it to make this scene.  I wanted a more open scene so I did not use the awnings but they will get used in other scenes.

The base is made from Evergreen tiled styrene sheet airbrushed brick color then a wash of cement which settled into the cracks.

I made by bike racks by removing every other vertical post from some roof top railings from a Tomix building kit.

Here is the finished bicycle parking area just a short distance from the station entrance.  This is also the place to catch a taxi.