FfarquharDeveloper's TrackMaster Customs

It will be motorized. There is a small gap between the motor and front portion where the face will be. An A23 battery will be stored in there and that will motorize the loco. I intend on not resorting to having the battery stored in an external power car.

[Super]

Anxious to see the final custom Ffar 😃

2023/03/23 Update

been awhile again, no promises that i wont go missing for another few months again
this thread is basically just becoming a "customs and whatever else is happening that i find interesting enough to share" thread
also i've been gone for quite a bit now, when DID we get a site font update this is much softer and nicer on the eyes!

custom thomas faces and custom james faces. donald and douglas or percy will be next to get custom faces. it all depends what im feeling the day i want to do sculptwork
 

also went to barcelona and spain last week, we were supposed to ride the train but our train was canceled and we ended up getting a 16 hour bus ride instead of the originally scheduled 2 hour train ride.

i might make those french flatbeds with the rectangular buffers those were pretty cool and funky


 



 

also its not plarail but im gonna repaint a hotwheels porsche 935 to be jazz from the transformers g1 cartoon, just thought i'd share that for whenever i get the paint stripper to remove the factory paint and alfie's paint so i can repaint both of them.

Welcome back, Ffar! Been somewhat wondering when you might show up again after the Dart update. Last month, I've been looking through some of your recent Tweets and was surprised to find out you got heavily into one of my own fandoms (which I assumed you wouldn't care about in the slightest, or would be too shy to admit until then). I even had an idea to surprise you with a project themed after its (real) protagonist, who quickly became my No. 1 favourite character in that company's history. Might be too late for its original purpose, but I might still make it one day.

The new Light theme was added on March 7th, but I personally don't like it and chose to view the Classic version by default for as long as it's there.

When did you make the faces for Thomas and James, and are you planning to make new ones for the latter? You called these ones "outdated" in the filename. On the third Thomas face, the pupils look too small compared to the other five; unless it's meant to be the close up sad face from "Thomas Comes to Breakfast", which does have slightly smaller pupils.

Might sound really dumb to ask, but what were French flatbeds, an Eiffel Tower replica and the Mona Lisa doing in Catalonia or Spain? Then again, I did see a mini Eiffel Tower in Bulgaria myself. Hope your vacation was great. If you took enough photos on the trip, I think you should start a new photography thread to keep them neatly organised.

side track but I did actually see the real Eiffel Tower back in 2019 I might provide images heavily edited. I must say it was pretty big. (also this picture had my younger brother who I have cropped out) but I was there not much of a selfie guy.

[Super]

I love those custom Thomas and James faces. Is that a photo of an ancient Roman stone aqueduct?

The James photos are slightly outdated. I have updated them since.
The Thomas scared face is a direct reference to a video FlyingPringle made and posted prior to his departure from Twitter. However, I can't share it here or explicitly namedrop it here so if you know, you know.

Mona Lisa and Eiffel Tower were both in France.
That is a viaduct by Gaudi in Spain along with some other architecture in Spain.
French flatbeds are in France.
it was one continuous trip left the us airport, got to paris france for a layover, got to spain, explored barcelona spain, took an excruciatingly long bus ride to paris, explored paris, left same paris airport, got back to us airport, got home

I could start a photography thread, I do have quite a few photos from the trip although several have me in them and I don't exactly fancy showing my face.

also minor update

2023/03/25 Update

- ordering some more parts for upcoming customs today, most notably Pip, Emma, and the Works Diesel.
- it would be really funny (and it seems really likely) if all three of them were finished before i got the STL for Bear fixed and him printed out

2023/6/17 Update

So

1. Dart's just kinda dead in the water and in custom purgatory right now.
   
2. Ryan v2 is sorta worked on but also kinda in custom purgatory.
   
3. Pip and Emma have also been started but I REALLY cannot be bothered to finish them or post photos of them right now (especially after the photocap update, this is edited after the last post in this thread from today) and are also stuck in custom purgatory.
   
4. Jinty has been started and is in custom purgatory.
   
5. Arthur received new paint applications to his face. 
   
6. Thomas got a new face.
   
7. Bertram has sorta been started however is in custom purgatory right now.
   

So basically a lot of customs are in purgatory and there's some minor face updates.

so I got one of them done, and things are tracking to be that they're going to all be done before Bear.

This is Willow, my interpretation of The Works Diesel from James and the Diesel Engines.
She started out as Plarail's S-34 Car Carrier Train, there were a few reasons why I picked this for her over something like BoCo.

1. The long bogey flatbed, definitely want more of these so I'll be picking up 2 more S-34s for some future customs.
   
2. The built-in front coupler is perfect for a character who connects to things from both sides regularly and not having to add it in was such a great help.
   

Build Process:

1. EF 65 1071 unboxed with Car Carrier.
   
2. Cut off protruding details with clippers.
   
3. File down the remaining details.
   
4. Straight up forget to fill in some holes.
   
5. Add the polystyrene sheet and tubing that makeup the buffer beams.
   
6. Add in polystyrene to make the new window holes.
   
7. Cut out windows.
   
8. Resculpt face (we don't talk about Willow V1's face)
   
9. Bake face
   
10. Paint face
    
11. Add first layer of milliput.
    
12. Shelf it for like a week (I went and watched Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse and Transformers: Rise of the Beasts)
    
13. Add more milliput to the roof.
    
14. Sand down the middle section of the roof and leave an indent for the cabs.
    
15. Wetsand it a bit.
    
16. Apply tamiya filler putty.
    
17. Sand
    
18. Wetsand
    
19. Add the front panel ontop of the cabs.
    
20. Prime it in Tamiya White and promptly run out halfway through so there's only one coat of primer down.
    
21. TS-49 Bright Red
    
22. TS-26 Pure White
    
23. TS-26 Pure White again but to add on a white rectangle going down from the white of the windows/top half of the color.
    
24. TS-4 German Grey for the roof.
    
25. Hand paint all details on.
    
26. Sleep
    
27. Change bufferbeams to black and lipstick to a darker red after staying up late finishing up the custom.
    
28. Clearcoat it (this is the part of the process where it's the third and fourth image of the gru plan meme but I cannot be bothered to visualize the meme but if it were visualized the text would be "PLAN A CUSTOM" "MAKE A CUSTOM" "CLEARCOAT IT!" "clearcoat it."
    

Changes from the typical take of a rendition of The Works Diesel.

1. She's Red and White. This was originally and still is meant to look like a more "medical" like paint job but due to the placement of the white cross over a red cross it kinda looks like a Swiss diesel. However, this is not the origin and base for this paint scheme. The actual origin of the paint scheme is Transformers Animated Red Alert. Kind of a wildcard of a choice but I felt it was very much needed to help break up the massive cluster of big green and blue diesels which dominate color-wise.
   
2. She's female, this was a decision I had already decided from the get-go before any of the liveries were conceptualized. As most takes of the Works Diesel present the character as male I chose to take a different route like a few others had.
   
3. TFA Red Alert was the main inspiration for the color choice, personality, and face of Willow. Including bits such as the Red Front Coupler, which I would like to dye red instead of just painting red (now I wonder who I have to ask about dying couplers, thinking reeaaaaalllly hard here)
   
4. She's not numbered whatever number- actually wait the works diesel doesn't even have a canon number in the books so she's really just numbered unlike The Works Diesel.
   
5. Made out of an EF65 included with the S-34 Car Carrier rather than a BoCo like most people usually do when tackling customs of the Works Diesel (namely ADuckProductions and NWR58)
   

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Build Process - Images:

The final bit of images.

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Additional 2023/6/17 Update:

So several things have happened since I last posted and I'll cover the big ones. (editing this so I can get the formatting features)

• I was in a musical. 
  
• I graduated from High School.
  
• Transformers have taken over my life even FURTHER and have started to influence customs (like the works diesel)
  
• I'm finally working on completing the pack
  

1. Jack (Winter 2021)
   
2. Alfie (January 2023)
   
3. Oliver (May 2023)
   
4. Kelly (May 2023)
   
5. Patrick (May 2023)
   
6. Additionally, I have Max and Monty the Dump Trucks and Ned the Steam Shovel designed and waiting for some minor modifications before printing such as pinholes, axleholes, axle size, etc.
   

Finally just wanted to ask, when did we get a massive site update with new UI, new website domain, image cap of 10, etc?