1:350 House N°3

1:350 House N°3 – buildings for ship models

The third numbered structure of the coastal range in 1:350 scale. Anyone who builds a harbor setting usually finds that a single building will not hold the area and the scene looks half empty. The numbered range solves that problem by offering several different objects from which a continuous row can be assembled without repeating the same shape.

How the size of a building reads at 1:350

For architecture, 1:350 scale is small: what is noticeable from the street on a real structure tends to be at the limit of visibility here. That is why work at this size turns on the overall silhouette and on surfaces rather than on finely worked detail. The viewer judges whether the building sits well in size against the hull of the ship, and only afterward notices the surface. Match the amount of shading to that; overdone modeling would read as a caricature.

Evening out the sheen and the finish

Different shades have different degrees of sheen, and in a small scale that is more obvious than on large models. The safest approach is to spray the whole object with matte varnish, which levels the surfaces out, and only then to bring the gloss back in spots where it belongs – on glazed areas or on a wet edge at the water. Dust and a fine pigment will finally link the structure to the ground, so that it does not look as though it has simply been set down on the base.

Meant for modelers who

• assemble a seafront row from several different structures
• are adding a land backdrop to 1:350 waterline models
• want a display scene with a constant guide to scale
• are looking for practice in a consistent finish on a small area

The ship, the base and the water are handled by the modeler separately.