Illustrations by the author

As promised in January, here we are again with another installment of the Trier basilica project. There's not been a lot of time for building or design work this month unfortunately, but some progress has been made since last time. As discussed at the end of the previous article, we needed an elevation view of the apse end of the building. Here it is:

Detailing is still rough and ready at this stage - lines overlap and so on, but it really doesn't matter as yet. The next step was going to be detailing up the drawings, but it seems to me that it's probably better to leave that to a later stage - I may as well do the work just once (ie, on the model parts drawings) instead of twice, so instead, it's straight into the prototype parts layout and we'll do the detailing once the parts fit well. There was also a need for a roof plan view and various other bits and pieces, but these are fairly boring so I won't reproduce them here.

Working from the existing drawings, I found only about six to eight hours was needed to get a basic parts breakdown. Using computer drawing programs is enormously labour-saving, as you can simply take parts of your drawings and smack them directly into your model layout, it's great. (Now I'm contradicting myself! I guess the reality is that it's still best if you can do more of the work directly on the model.) This also reflects the simplicity and repeating elements of the original building, of course. Here's an overview of the current parts layout:

Still very basic at this stage! (Actually, there's no base as yet either, but as you can see from the marking of the parts, there is one in the works.) Many of the parts are 'roughs' at present, and the apse roof in particular is only a roughly worked out 'placeholder'. So is a lot of the so-called 'artwork', especially the horrible doors and windows. As yet I haven't had access to a printer to print a test copy (I'm stuck at home with the flu...was meant to be my summer hols...why is it always the way?!), so there will doubtless be parts fit issues.

Should you happen to feel like having a go at building a copy, don't work from the thumbnails, please just click here to download a .zip file of higher-res copies of the model sheets (1.3Mb). Note: They're not HIGH-res as yet, because the quality doesn't justify it yet. The sheets are .jpg format and you will need to do your own sizing/print setup to get them to print out at the correct scale - just use your printer's 'fit to size' option, ideally for A3 paper. One sheet is printed on A4 paper (letter will do), and one A3 sheet is printed twice. 160 gsm paper should do the trick, but that's only a guess, as mentioned I haven't tried it myself yet! There is as yet no numbering system or instructions but I have labelled some parts, it's a very simple building and by referring to the previous article and drawings you should get the gist of it OK.

Some quick building points to note: tabs to score on the reverse and fold forwards are yellow, while the normal score-on-the-front-and-bend-back are blue (L'Instant-Durable style, ahem ahem...I wish I was as good as them...and if you attempt this thing, so will you!). White tabs either don't need folding or are markers for gluing tabs on another part. The ends of the main roof part are meant to be scored and folded under and glued to the roof, it's for the overhang. The long thin part under the main roof is just a capping strip, score it down the middle and bend to a 'v' shape.

Please email the author at nipngnwm@REMOVETHISSPAMBLOCKq-net.net.au if you do have a go yourself, I'd love to see your results and will put them in the next instalment.

Speaking of which...coming up in the Next Instalment (probably May issue): A test model! Oh, and a base! Doubtless there will be plenty of lessons to be learned and incorporated too. I also intend to add some 'sophistication', with more dimensionality for doors, windows and the statue niches. Once the niggles are worked out, we can go crazy detailing and texturing the model. Mmm! We'll need to make oodles and oodles of lovely textures. I plan to devote a bit of discussion to this - we'll talk about how to make them, what programs can help, when to use photos and bitmaps, when to use vector illustration, and all that kind of stuff - I'm far from expert in all this, but hopefully it'll be useful stuff for other beginners. See you next time!