The structure build for Alice's Restaurant in the Arlo hotel turned out pretty well for my first self-designed paper and card building. Inkscape, an open source vector drawing program, was used for the design process. Why paper and cardstock structures were chosen, and some examples are noted here. Michael Scott's YouTube channel, "Chandwell", has a plethora of information regarding designing structures, using the open source Inkscape program, which is a vector drawing program. The structures are then built using paper and cardstock. While Inkscape does have a bit of a learning curve, Michael's videos were used as a guide and aid in the learning process of this more complex "L" shaped building with two front sides. First, a HUGE thanks to Michael Scott for sharing his knowledge on his YouTube channel, and providing a ton of inspiration!!! Again, many of his other videos had to be referenced, before starting the "L" design and build. This is my 2nd/3rd, self-designed building using Inkscape and a lot of Michael's tips, tricks and more. It is in HO scale at 1:87 scale. It is called the 2nd/3rd design because, when viewed from the side with Ken’s Korner Market, the ACE Hardware and the apartments on the second floor, it appears to be one building, but when viewed from the other side with the Old Barn Star - Handcrafted Furniture and Mike’s upholstery it appears to be a different building. This works well for me as I have a train table, not an around the walls type layout. This design was a bit more complex than the hotel, as one side protrudes further out than the other for a little bit more than 1/2 the width of the building. The design started in Inkscape as a floor plan that showed the positioning of the inner skeleton and the inner and outer walls. ![]() The screenshot shows the shape of the building from above. Different colors were used to represent different thicknesses of cardstock for different purposes. ![]() This screenshot, from the Inkscape program, may look like a jumbled up mess, but it was actually used to print and build the "L" shaped building.
The "L" shaped building worked out well by providing two buildings for my train table while actually only having to build one structure.
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