Lym's TARDIS (and Met Box) Renders

[lym]

Experiments in weathering...

[boxman550]

looks fantastic

[lym]

I wasn't particularly happy with my previous attempt at a Barnet-style Mark 3 box, so I went and redid it from scratch. So now I have a few more improvements such as weathering, but I'm especially proud of the layered top sign lintels.  

[lym]

V47 on a modern Street View in (roughly) its original location. Makes me wish we had Virtual Reality for police boxes. Oh, what could be if they weren't demolished...

[hb88banzai]

V47 on a modern Street View in (roughly) its original location. Makes me wish we had Virtual Reality for police boxes. Oh, what could be if they weren't demolished...

Oh, that's just beautiful!  

I wasn't particularly happy with my previous attempt at a Barnet-style Mark 3 box, so I went and redid it from scratch. So now I have a few more improvements such as weathering, but I'm especially proud of the layered top sign lintels.  

Nice texturing on that latest Barnet-style Box, lymerence.

A few quick notes, though:

I know you said "Barnet-style", but do note that Barnet's phone door actually opened the other way, with the handle on the right.

Barnet was an early Mark 3, which differed a bit from later ones (mostly in the roof line) and many of these S Division Boxes had repairs to their front centre divider applied shortly after being built, with a series of bolts holding it on. Regarding the roof line, though the centre roof tier wasn't as tall as on later Mark 3's, it was taller than on all but the J Division Mark 2's (which essentially had early Mark 3 roofs), so it should be a bit taller relative to the top tier/rise here (ignoring the pyramidal part).

Not a big deal, and a bit harder to do, but also note that the roof tiers on all Met Boxes were not flat on top, but rather they were gently sloped to help shed water. Same with the tops of the sign lintels as well.

As you show, all the windows save the front ones opened on Mark 3's, but that also meant that they had a slightly different profile. They had a metal frame attached to the concrete that made the opening part of the windows a bit smaller, as well as having a weather ledge at the bottom of the window itself. It gives the visual impression of "thicker" windows and slightly smaller window panes (often disproportionately at the bottom due to the weather ledge).

Also, you are modeling the pillars here more like a Glasgow Box, with flat beveled corners rather than moulded ones. There should be a small 90 degree bump in from the main faces followed by a quarter round, then a bump out to the next flat face. It was the same on Mark 1s, 2s and 4s, but with differing amounts of 'bump' (they seemed to get shallower with time, so the quarter round portion got bigger to fill the same 1" space).

Finally, unlike Mark 1's and 2's, the front door on Mark 3's had little or no beveling on the rails and stiles (pretty much like the inside of the Crich door), while here you are giving it the same beveling as on the walls.


Oh, while I'm at it, your Mark 5's (Hendon, Heathrow, etc) show pillars with square corners, but they actually had the type of flat beveling you are putting on your Barnet Box. Same comment about the opening centre windows as well, they were a bit smaller with an outer supporting frame surrounding, giving a thicker impression than those on either side.

Really great job though, lymerence!

[lym]

Thank you for the feedback, @hb88banzai! This should be very fun to do.

One thing I should point out about the Barnet-style box is that although the phone door opened from the other way on the actual box, I decided to do it this way around just for variation since my previous attempt had it the regular way around. Not particularly accurate to the Barnet box, but it shouldn't be too difficult to convert the model into a regular early Mark 3.

But yes, thank you! Some of the things (specifically the flat bevelling on the pillars and the side window profiles being the same as on the front) were done because I wasn't particularly confident in my ability to make them accurately, but I'll definitely give them a try since I'm always up to improve. I'd never actually noticed the lack of bevelling on the rails and stiles of the front door and the bolts on the centre divider, so those should be fixed soon.

[hb88banzai]

No problem.

BTW - This photo is a good one to show some typical early Mark 3 (ie, S Division style) details, especially the roof line (it's S65 at Bignells Corner, which was built and sited around the same time as Barnet - and is another on my list of Topics to create based on old identifications) --



Note the detail just above the front door - a slight shortening of the first of the little steps under the sign lintel, but only on that half of the front side. Among other things, it gives the door some clearance to open while remaining about the same height as the wall. All Mark 3's had this.

Look a bit closer in the gap and you will see the edge of the steel frame that reinforced the door opening, surrounding the door. This too was new for the Mark 3's. The metal frame concept was held over into the Mark 4's, but that asymmetric reduction in the step wasn't.

[lym]

Having taken hb88banzai's considerations into account, I've improved my Mk3!



Here's a comparison of my box and the one in his reference photo:



As you can see, it's almost an exact match. There's some slight differences off to the side, but this is because the depth of field isn't matched perfectly.

[hb88banzai]

Much better!

Still need to put weather ledges on the bottom of those side and back windows though. Also needs a metal weather ledge/flashing above the phone door - another Mark 3 trait held on for later Marks, along with J Division Mark 2s (sorry I didn't mention that before).

Oh, and more bolts along that centre divider. They weren't consistent as to number and spacing since they were a repair/retrofit, but they ran most of length of the divider in most cases that we see them. Barnet had five, more or less equidistant, starting about at the top of the window recesses and ending about a third of the way down the bottom inset panels. Looks like Bignells Corner may have had only three or four considering how far down they start and the clean gap to her head. Perhaps four, each about the same level on each pair of insets - hard to tell.

Spotted another thing - your hinges on the Phone Door are more like the retrofitted Mark 1's and early-to-mid Mark 2's (refitted from their original wood frames to new metal ones), but Mark 3's were a bit different. Here's a shot of the Barnet Phone door for reference --



Also visible are bolts number 2, 3 and 4 (counting down from top, with number 1 and 5 out of view). You can also see the weather flashing above that stretches wider than the phone panel.

Here are the Barnet Windows --



It's a bit hard to see the weather ledge, being white on white. On Mark 3's they were just a bumped out strip covering part of the bottom of the metal part of the window like the Hartnell Box (though a bit less prominent). Perhaps a bit of flare or slope to them from top to bottom - at least there is a suggestion of this in the Pics we have of F4. There's also a continuation of the bump to form a lip that creates a notch under the bottom that fits over the bottom lip of the metal window frame that bolts to the concrete, to help keep the rain out of the pivot joint. The weather ledge fits over this frame lip (which is continuous around the opening), but the rest of the window snugs up behind it when closed.

[lym]

Improved further based on feedback:

[hb88banzai]

That's the ticket!

One thing though, you seem to be mixing the spacing on the bolts between the Barnet and Bignells Corner Boxes, so seems a bit uneven to my eye. Probably best to choose one or the other - just make them a bit more even. Easiest way to do it on this model is just move the top bolt to where the bottom of the bolt is about even with the top of the window cut bevels, where they meet the outer flats.

Note also that the hinges, besides being in a different location, are a bit beefier, and the attaching flanges probably not quite so thick/proud of the door frame. Oh, and you still need the weather flashing over the phone door opening.

And while on hinges, finally able to see in the latest angle that you haven't put on the main door hinges. As they were attached in the jam area, only the round part of the hinges were visible. Early-to-mid model Mark 3's had only two, while late model ones (basically the inner Divisions) had three. For the early Mark 3's like this one, you can see the top one's position and size in the above crop of Barnet's windows, as well as the Bignells Corner shot. The bottom hinge was about the same position relative to the bottom inset panel as the top is to the top, but in a mirrored fashion. You can see both here --



BTW - that's some really nice concrete texturing you've got going on there - same with the weathering. Very convincing.

One last thing, I just noticed, but I think perhaps your top sign lintels aren't quite deep enough. Looking between your latest rendering and the Barnet window closeup, there seems to be a noticeable difference.

[lym]

Latest version!

[hb88banzai]

Looking good!

Quick question - I'm not all that familiar with Bleder, does it have any parametric capabilities? Specifically, can you get any measurements out of your models, or is it all just eyeballing?

[lym]

Indeed it does! The scale of this model is slightly too big, though, but it can easily be put in a normal scale. Did anyone ever manage to take measurements of the Barnet box while it was still there? I'd be interested in comparing them.

[Scarfwearer]

We have a topic for that: http://tardisbuilders.com/index.php?topic=4476