Fruit and Produce Company -- Part 4?

In my last post, several weeks ago, I left off with a punch list for the main building. During the past rainy week, I have tried to return to working for a little while on the model most days, and it has led to some progress.

One of the first steps from last weekend was to clear off the plate glass on my workbench so that I could make clean cuts in clear acetate. I found some clear stock in my plastics drawer, and after measuring started cutting pieces for the windows. I used Formula 560 canopy glue, applied to the back of the window and door inserts with a micro-brush, to mount the window "glass." Knowing that I was planning on adding interior lighting later, the smart move would have been to paint the interior walls with black acrylic while the building was upside down. I did not make the smart move. 

Having checked off one task from the list, I moved on to the roof. I cut some strips of three scale feet from black construction paper. Before returning the canopy glue to its shelf, I coated the styrene roof with the glue and applied the black paper to represent tar paper on the roof. After the glue dried I tried painting with roof brown acrylic paint, but didn't really like the look. I later painted the tar paper roof with flat grimy black. After two coats of that, I was happier with it. 

While it was not on my original punch list, I decided to add the medium air conditioner from the Walthers Roof Details kit in my stash. I cut the appropriate pieces from the sprue and sanded the edges to remove any tiny nubs left by my nippers. I assembled the detail kit with liquid solvent cement, managing to only have one slightly crooked wall with my shaky hands. After the air conditioner dried overnight, I filled the small open joint at the top of that wall with Tamiya putty. While assembling the air conditioner, I sprayed the sprue with the tile coping from the original grocery distributor kit with a red primer rattle can. After that had dried, I pieced together the tile coping on the brick walls. 

Over just the past couple of days, I continued to make my way through a few more items from the punch list. I struggled to add the roof over the loading dock. In hind sight, I should have not used the plastic hangers from the kit, but instead fabricated new ones from wire. But I went ahead, using the kit supplied ones. First of all, my shaky hands exacerbated my apparent need for three hands to hold and glue the hangers, roof, and structure wall together all at the same time. Thank goodness no one was watching or listening to me during that ordeal. Because one of the hangers was missing, I also had to deal with the extra holes. I planned to hide the hole in the wall with the building's sign. I filled the hole in the roof with putty. That meant that the roof needed to be painted after it was installed. I had sprayed it a gray color previously, but now I brush painted it a darker gray Vallejo color. While it looked kind of awful wet, after drying overnight the color and brush marks both flattened out. Today, before taking the photos, I applied some weathering with chalks and pigments as well as finally cutting out and gluing on the paper sign that I had designed and printed out on my inkjet printer weeks ago.

I still have a couple of items from the punch list. Looking at this photo from an observer's point of view, some kind of lighting is definitely needed. My plan is to fashion a light under the dock roof on one side and to place an interior light on the other side. I have some LED lights and supplies from Evan Designs to experiment with, so I might as well get on the ball. Along with lighting, I plan to add some simple interior details: window shades and black paper view blocks if nothing else. 

Looking at this scene from this angle, two things spring to mind. One is that I should attempt a more accurate mockup of the adjacent building than the blue scrap wall flat. The other idea is the possibility of starting some first layer of scenery around this scene. 

Before starting any of that, I will work out the lighting for this building in order to wrap it up. Seeing the progress I have made recently should keep me motivated. Beyond scenery here, I have a photo/collage in the works to experiment with on the backdrop that goes to the right of the green-roofed warehouse in the photo. I want to include that in a presentation that I am giving in June, so I have a goal/deadline for scenery along the backdrop here after this major building for the Nooksack Fruit and Produce Company is completed.