Details for the Tomix condo building

The Tomix condominium building has lots of potential for adding details and scenes within the building itself or around it.

There are 2 units on each floor with all but the top floor having a balcony.  The top floor are smaller but have a good sized patio area instead of the balcony.

Each unit has planter box.  I suppose the inner wall could be cut away to make the balcony larger but I wanted to try to represent some plants.

I found that some left over beams from a RIX Products bridge kit cut to the correct length fit right into the planter.   The tops of the beams were painted brown and some scenic material added.  Then grass tufts were added to represent some plants.

Here is one of the completed planter box units inserted into a planter box in one of the top floor units.  The patio furniture for comes from Preiser set 79554.

On the other top floor patio I used one of the laundry line parts from an Preiser unpainted figure set that I have had around forever.

In reality a more modern building like this one would likely have a washer and dryer in each unit.

In the raised area at the front corner of the building I added some grass, shrubs, and a Woodland Scenics tree.  Some school children from a Kato set bring some human life to the scene.

There is still much more that can be done with this building but for now I need to stop and get other things ready for the convention layout.

Using Kato DioTown detail parts

Kato offers several sets of street and utility details as part of their DioTown series.  These are primarily meant to model a Japanese scene but many of the pieces fit in just fine on an American prototype layout.

In this scene I am going to use parts from sets 23-213 and 23-215.  Some guardrails from set 23-213 were already used on the highway module.

These are meant to be plugged into specific holes on the DioTown bases but can also be adapted to use anywhere.  This photo shows holes I have drilled in the sidewalk outside the Tomix condo building.

The utility poles are square on bottom where they would plug into the DioTown base.  These can easily be rounded with a file.

Most city utility poles in Japan are steel so I painted these a light gray and added a couple of the optional transformers provided.

So here is some of the fence, a utility pole, and 2 street lights painted up and placed in front of the Tomix Condo building.  Another utility pole was finished and is just to the right out of the photo.

The Tomix condominium building

I have had one of the  Tomix # 4034 condominium buildings on the left end of the module bolted down but left unpainted since 2011.  It was time to finish and and make it something more unique.

This is a really well designed building model and additional kits can be used to make it as short or tall as you want.  It holds together without glue and can be taken apart for painting.

I air brushed the building sections with Testors sand and wrote the color and part number on the inside of the 1st floor in case I want to add more sections later and need to match the color.  All the patio areas and the roof top were painted concrete and the entry doors dark gray.

The base was brush painted with concrete colors on the sidewalks and building foundations. Reefer gray was used for the parking area.  The gate to the parking area came from the Green Max fence set with the lamps added from a TomyTec festival figure set.

The stairs are separate pieces that stack on top of each other and match the walkway on each floor.  These are another well executed part of this model but my only complaint would be that they don't include some sort of cap piece to go on the top of the column.  I went through all my scraps and found something to make my own.  The blue arrow in this photo points out this piece I added.

The top part that is above the elevator shaft got a coat of Testors dark green and the entire building was given a wash with Testors brown weathering wash which helps to bring out the brick detail.

Several sign stickers are included in this kit and I chose to use the one that did not have any English writing.

This model has lots of possibilities for details and I will get into that in the next couple of posts.