Modular Building / Terrain System in 1:160

[MichaelWinicki]

IMEX premium.

Sorry, those look like toys. Great stuff for kids!  ;D

Mark

I don't think they're the equivalent of IMEX quite frankly.

[C855B]

(I have a shelf layout, which is 18" to 24" deep - these won't fly for me)

Agreed. These are "three foot rule" material at best, even after a 55-gallon drum of Dullcote. Background background. :-\

Besides... did anybody find pricing? The discussion is moot unless they're like $2.50-3 each, and we're overlooking that things are sold as a "system". So just to get going, you're shelling out for stuff you won't use. If the net cost is >$6 per, then skip your latté that morning, spend the extra pennies on the IMEX, and call it a day.

[ljudice]

David - I know, lots of houses available - but are any of them based on construction from the 1970's and onward...

Frankly, I don't even need anything like this - I'm just commenting on it! 

(Oh no, the internet has turned me into such a whiner I whine about things I don't even care about)

[chuck geiger]

And the MR Brillo pad trees

[wazzou]

Frankly, I'd like to see Rix or Pikestuff or whomever it is they call themselves mimic there HO line of houses in N Scale.

[Nato]

     "Dio Town" from Kato is a similar idea,but better done,with buildings that have detail,the functional Uni-Tram track system for the streets. The 2 Unit low floor tram cars look like the newest cars in Portland,or Phoenix execpt they load on the wrong side because Japanese traffic drives on the right. The other model cities company cannot be aiming it at kids,the size is two small and there will be the usual warning notices about smal parts that could be swallowed.I don't think it is aimed at model railroaders,are there really adults out there who want to build a model of Mule Shoe ,Texas,and most archetects do scratch modeling.Lastly ,yes that appears to be a Balma "Blue Johnny" porta poty.                                                                                                                                  Nate Goodman (Nato),

[jmlaboda - RIP]

"According to the WSJ 80 percent of all toys lose money. I think Parvia might be one of them."

Looking around the website, which is for a company started back in 2005, sure isn't very impressive when you see that such-n-such page "is not up yet."  And I can find no indication of what scale is possible, or what scale is used in the examples shown.  Not very impressive to me.

[Nato]

  I double clicked before my message was finished. I don't know if they are considered Toys, or if the company considers them Models? IMEX sells,manufacturers some very nice Radio Control model boats. Some are ready to sail,their Coast Guard motor lifeboat,some assembled,but you have to install the radio gear,Coast Guard Island Class 110 FT. cutter. They are not cheap,but you pay for the quality you get. Nate Goodman (Nato).

[TiVoPrince]

Despite
the misgivings expressed in this thread the tile roofs still look pretty fair.  The little voice in my head (OK, one of the many) keeps telling me that it may look crude, but still more useful to me than anything in the Walthers modular series...

[Parvia]

Hi, all.

I’m the designer of the Parvia system, and I’d like to respond to some of what you’ve been discussing.  I hope you don’t mind my joining your forum.

I’m not a hard-core model railroader, although the N-scale layout I built with my dad (as an adult, in his house) is still running fine, 25 years later.  It’s not that realistic – my dad likes to carve buildings out of wood, and our trees are basically balls of yarn – but it’s fun to work on, to operate and to show off, and visitors find it charming and fascinating.  I can admire the incredible realism of the best model railroaders and fine-scale modelers, but for the same amount of effort and expense, I’d rather have a bigger model with more going on.

And that’s more or less the idea behind Parvia: you can build a fairly realistic miniature town or city with a fraction of the time, money, patience and skill that is evident in the magazines.  Yes, it’s SimCity® meets LEGO®  meets Kato Unitrack®, but those are all things I like!  And I’m old enough to remember the heyday of model railroading – in about 1960 about half of American boys had train sets – and we didn’t obsess about realism back then.  So maybe I’m not alone.

Having said that, I want to put in a good word for our buildings.  The facades are printed onto the plastic walls, which are flat.  I just measured the trim on my house, and it sticks out about half an inch, which in N-scale would be less than 0.08 millimeters.  The mullions on my windows are ¾" thick, so they’d be about 0.12mm.  Those dimensions are simply not possible in plastic (and most plastic buildings are grossly overscale), but they’re easy to print.  Printed buildings have a level of fine detail and color that far exceeds what is possible in plastic.  I think they look great, even close up, and I think the images of buildings on our site demonstrate that.

If you then consider that our buildings are custom-designed by the modeler, that they can be rearranged easily to suit the setting, that they can feature multiple colors and color gradients, and that they are fairly cheap – reckon about $5 per building – and I think our buildings stand proud next to the alternatives.  We’re planning to upgrade to an architectural assortment of available doors and windows this month, so that you’d be able to model your own house or neighborhood, and we hope to keep growing that repertory to include European, Japanese and historical styles.

We chose N scale because of the huge variety of vehicles and figures out there (we don’t make either) but we wouldn’t mind if you guys used our buildings or accessories – I’m told we make lovely telephone poles and streetlights.  And if you figure out a few tricks to adapt them to your needs, please send them in and we’ll post them.

Who is this for?  We think it’s for
•   Teenagers (and adults) too old for LEGO
•   People who liked SimCity and want it in 3D
•   People who’ve always admired miniature worlds but didn’t have the means to express their visions
•   People who work at a screen all day long and want to build something creative when they get home
•   Women who want to zoom out from dollhousing to “dolltowning”
•   Gamers who want a flexible and portable board for miniatures
•   Fathers who want to do something with their younger sons
•   Adults who admire model railroad layouts but don’t have the time, space, money, patience, skill or commitment required to produce anything worth showing off

We haven’t broken even yet, and we may never.  The site is still under construction, and we’re working on the pieces I think we’re still missing.  But Parvia is available for order, if you’re interested in being among the early adopters, at www.parvia.com.

Thanks for letting me present our point of view.  Maybe we’ll even turn out to be a great “feeder” hobby for model railroading!

[Ed Kapuscinski]

Wow, it's great to see you signed up and for the explanation.

Good luck with it! It's pretty cool to see someone starting like this from scratch.

[daniel_leavitt2000]

If you make vehicles, it would lend a lot of good will for us vehicle starved modelers. While we have some, we have gaping holes like any modern fire engine, or any Lincoln, Caddy or modern school bus.

I would humbly suggest a GM RTS bus as a first project. Dimensions and photos are easily available on the web and they are very basic in shape.

Thanks for joining!

[Dave V]

You know, the traffic lights, light poles and street details would be plenty useable with some paint and weathering.

We could always use more street details.  My town look sterile in spite of all the detail I've shoveled into it.  And the Parvia prices on the detail parts are way more reasonably priced than anything else I've seen from Woodland Scenics and even the cheaper companies.

[Subwayaz]

Thanks for those links David S, much appreciated. Because there is was a lack of awareness of where to purchase HO scale and N scale homes.  Some nice links solved that issue

[DKS]

Thanks for those links David S, much appreciated. Because there is was a lack of awareness of where to purchase HO scale and N scale homes.  Some nice links solved that issue

No problem. They all came from here:

http://whiteriverandnorthern.net/links_6.htm