The Dear Estate 2

Silent as a snowflake, in the night...

3D printing has become more and more affordable for model builders as time goes on and technology develops. As a modeler who wants to build very specific structures that often times will have a lot of detail, 3D printing offers a lot of solutions to traditional modeling. In the case of the Dear House, it gave me an option to start construction and have a film-accurate model of a structure that has, until now at least, existed only in the beautiful artwork of "Lady and the Tramp". 

Note, I said start...while Chris and the guys at Gold Rush have indeed been god-sends in this project, there is still a lot of work to be done.

So, the structure has popped out of the 3D printer, and is layout ready, right? Well, yes and no. The printing process left thousands upon thousands of tiny "threads" of plastic, basically everywhere the printing head pulled away from the part to move onto the next point of contact in the layer. A lot of work would be required to just prep the model for painting.

A study of a production drawing of the Dear House Vs. a traditional real world home.

Sanding is a simple and somewhat easy way to finish process a 3D print, depending on the material in question. Some printing materials respond well to sanding, with other materials it may not be an option. For example, PLA and ABS can respond very well to sanding. With harder materials, like Polycarbonate and PMMA, sanding is not an option. In the case of the Dear House, most of the sanding was done with fine Emory boards, the kind that are available in any chemist or drug store and are used in manicures and pedicures. They come with a three grit surface. Some of which I cut into "V" shapes to be able to get the point of the board into cracks and railings. Harder bits of the filament fuzz was tackled with the use of a set of dental tools. 

One of the production drawings. These were invaluable. *Co. Disney*

While I was going through this stage, I was planning colors, paints, and details. I looked at a large number of screenshots, and color examples from production. As stated before, wherever contradictions occur, I tend to follow the 1955 film. Then, if there are gaps in the 1955 film that the 2001 film covers, the 2001 film becomes the prime record. In a way, it's kind of like in Jurassic Park, where they had to fill in the gaps in the DNA with tree-frog samples.

Once the house was cleaned up, it was time to prime. When doing any sort of full object painting, you want to choose a primer that will go on as thinly as possible. One of the best choices is Tamiya. Tamiya's primers are specifically designed for use by modelers and radio control enthusiasts. This makes them a perfect choice for painting such a detail heavy object like the Dear House. 

Lady, Tramp, and their family on the front porch. Note the screen doors and light blue color, which was seen only in the 2nd film.

In the films, the Dear House seemed to change colors slightly. The 1955 film shows it as being predominantly white, while the 2001 film shows it slightly off-blue. (This can be chalked up to both the different sets of animators, as well as the passage of time. The structure seems to predominantly have bright, light colors, in both films.) Looking between the two films, I decided to go with the house being a very clean white. Much as it looked in the original 1955 animation. Thus, I chose the White Primer from Tamiya. This primer would become the primary undercoat, and topcoat, for the model. Killing the plastic sheen while also protecting, and giving the surface something for the detail coat to grip into.

Lady, at the doggie door in the 1955 film. The house is bright white.

Before priming the house, I spent at least two to three minutes swirling the contents of the can of primer, using a circular motion. Doing so fully dissolves the pigment into the solvent within the can. You should never, under any circumstances, shake the can before you prime or paint. If you do, you will mix the pigment into the solvent, instead of dissolving it. This will result in the formation of bubbles which will appear on the surface of your object while spraying. After about two or three minutes of swirling, you should hear the metal ball within the can moving smoothly. This indicates that the pigment is dissolved into the solvent and you are ready to begin priming your model.

Sitting on the foam base, with the first layer of topcoat

 
Using short and rapid strokes, I turned the house around after each stroke in order to hit all surfaces. In order to get good coverage, I started each stroke before I would hit the model and ended each stroke after passing over it. I did light passes to avoid over spraying. The goal was to start with a very thin initial coat that can be built up over time.

Once the initial coat of primer is dry, it’s time to begin painting. The painting process itself involves three distinct steps – undercoating, top coating and clear coating. The white of the primer was my undercoat. This left the roofs, front door, trim, and foundation to be painted. 

Production drawing showing the whole street in great detail. The Dear Estate is smack in the center, while Jock's House is on the right, and Trusty's House is on the left. Co. Disney

As the Lady and the Tramp franchise covers a point of time of about five years, the house seems to go through several stages of decor and grounds-keep. A nice touch from the Disney crew. In the first act of the 1955 film, the house is immaculate. With plenty of plant life, shrubs, and flowerbeds. In the second act, during the birth of the baby, the house's grounds become a little plainer. With more general shrubbery. More then likely, keeping up with the flowerbeds was put on hold for the arrival of the baby. The house remains like this until the 2nd film, which seems to have a happy middle-ground between a highly polished and well kept yard, and the reality that seven dogs live here.  

Front steps

I cut a base out of one inch foam board, that was close to the size of the front side, and backyards of the house. While this structure will hopefully be a part of the W&A RR eventually, for now this would be a diorama base. The front edge of the board represented the very front of the property, which has a retaining wall and steps leading down to the sidewalk. To make the retaining wall, I used thin balsa strips, bent by soaking them in we water. The steps themselves were carved out of the foam, then planked with balsa and filled in with plaster to create a stone-cement look. 
 
The whole base was painted in a dark earth tones. So that if any patch was visible under the grass layer, then it would appear simply as dark earth rather then show the pink foam. This also helped to seal the diorama.  

 Once the base was finished, I turned attention back to the house. I use acrylic paint from 'Apple Barrel' for all of my colors. These paints go on well, have a nice variety of colors in both matte, satin, and gloss, and are cheap. $0.50 a bottle! The roofs are very well detailed, with lots of texture and curves. I chose to hand-paint each roof, and then line the trim with white paint to match the primer coat. 

I used a trick called 'Dry Brushing' to achieve a lot of weathering and texture effects. Dry-brushing has two purposes.  Where the surface of the model is textured, dry-brushing can emphasis this texture.  It is particularly good at showing up the textures on stone, brick, rock, or other hard textures as well as highlighting the edges of model. On full sized vehicles and structures it is noticeable how the edges often look lighter because they reflect the light. Dry brushing achieves this in scale. 
 
Dry-brushing involves passing a paint brush that has next to no paint over the surface of the model. Only the edges and surface details of the model pick up the paint, so the technique highlights surface texture and makes edges stand out.  

The stone foundation of the house was painted a dark gray, and the mottled with a Q-tip to bring out some texture. Light granite gray was then dry-brushed over the tops of the stones to further define them, and create shadows and further textures.  

The brick chimney was painted in a similar way, with layers of mortar and soot. When doing painting/weathering, it's always best to start with the bottom color, and work your way up. Like the layers of a cake. In the case of the chimney for example, I started with the dark red that was the shadows between the bricks. Then dry-brushed a lighter red atop that. 

It is relatively easy to master dry brushing and it can do wonders for a model. Dry-brushing a model became a standard technique used by almost every modeller on almost every model. The technique is best employed when it is used with subtlety.  Regrettably, it was often used where it did not benefit the model and was often overdone, making some models appear garish. 

Looks...familiar.

As a side note, this is not the first time the Dear House has been modeled. In a strange twist of fate, the structure is available in an abbreviated form as a doll house!  Named "Fantasy Villa", no doubt to hide from the prying eyes of the mouse, the kit is available at pretty reasonable prices in the US and abroad. I do own one of these knock-off kits, although I did not build it. Instead choosing to use it as a creative source when I did my own model. The doll house is without a doubt inspired by the Dear Estate, right down to similar architectural features such as the peaked porch, the roof layout, the games, and the two story bay-window. 

Returning to my model, I next tackled the sidewalk leading to the front porch, and the brick pathway that runs around the right hand side of the building. Both of these change slightly between the films, and other franchise material and drawings. Some show them with curbstones, others do not. I made the brick using embossed styrine, while the sidewalk was made from a strip of balsa, sanded smooth and painted. I did cracks and expansion lines with a artist's pen.

I decided to finish the base up with the first layer of grass. I used static grass from Scenic Express" and the "Woodland Scenics" static grass applicator to get a nice even lawn. I did all of this with a cardboard footprint standing in for the house itself. The front and back yard play very important settings in both the 1955 and 2001 films. Thankfully, there is a lot of screenshots of the layout of the lawn, locations of trees, and other structures such as a bench wing, greenhouse, and a storage building. 

Along with Lady's doghouse of course. 

These structures will have to be scratch built, however, that's a project for another day.

 I marked out the two spots where the trees in the front yard would be, and made two dirt depressions. As grass tends to not grow directly underneath trees. The roofs were finished up, and the house tested in place. At this point, the house was not glued down, and there was work to be done on the interior. 

Doing a full interior for the house would be a daunting task, as well as one that would have very little results on the overall effect of the model. However, that doesn't mean that the house won't be lit, or that I did not look at the arrangement of rooms. The fine guys at Disney did their homework, and the Dear House evokes that period of time in 19th century America down to the finest details.

Production notes on the kitchen of the Dear House. *Co Disney*

Things like the coal stove in the kitchen, the gas lamps, the carpet styles and even the decor all date the film to a time and place. While we know the films take place between 1909 and 1912, it's very easily a location that fits into my 1893 W&A RR. 

One of the model "sets". *Co Disney*

On the subject of other models of this house, Disney themselves did some modeling of their own in order to create the film. To develop scenes and understand what the world would look like from the viewpoint of a dog, the production team and layout developers built scale models of the interior of the house. Then photographed these sets from the low angles that a dog would have. They even had small cutouts of Lady, Jim Dear, and Darling to establish how humans would look in this world. 

Thanks to these models, as well as the production design, the house's interior can be pretty well established. Which helps with the next step in the model's construction. It was time to put glass in the windows, and work on some interior detailing. I decided that, rather then a blacked shadowbox, to put drapes, shades, and other detail in the windows. Once again, we have plenty of choices! As even small things like the drapes change with the seasons. I choose the arrangement as seen in this screenshot from the 1955 film as my guide. 

Glass was done in large panels, glued to the interior walls with Mod-Podge matte finish glue. I prefer this glue for working with the thing clear plastic of windows and other glass representatives because the glue dries perfectly clear. If any of it gets onto a visible part of the window, it will vanish as it dries. In some cases, I use a Q-tip to fill the space between small panel lines on windows to create glass. The drapes themselves are painted on the inside of the glass.

We're starting to go somewhere with this model! In the end, this should hopefully be a relativity film accurate model, based on the available information provided by and based on the wonderful art of classic Disney animation. The only thing that could mess this project up would be, say, a modern adaptation that ret-cons the original cannon. 

Oh....