A superb book on modeling technique

I recently received as a gift a truly impressive and remarkable book on modeling techniques, not specifically model railroading, but all kinds of modeling. And just because it is aimed at a broader audience, it does contain examples of materials and techniques we model railroaders are not going to be familiar with. Much of it is aimed at larger scale work than even O scale, but the techniques are mostly quite transferable and of course are well illustrated with those larger examples (the book is brilliantly illustrated). Lastly, it’s a British book, so some of the materials will be unfamiliar (or at least will be called by unfamiliar names), but the back of the book has a superb glossary about materials, explaining clearly what each one is, and its other names.
     The title of the book is Model-Making: Materials and Methods, and it’s by David Neat, published by The Crowood Press (Wiltshire, England). The Crowood website is at www.crowood.com . My copy is the 2016 printing. It’s an 8.5 x 11-inch hardbound volume. Here”s the cover of the book:

The price in pounds is 19.95, about $27 U.S., a price offered by several sellers. It can be purchased readily on-line, for example directly from Book Depository in the U.K., who are very dependable and ship promptly (visit them at: https://www.bookdepository.com/Model-Making-David-Neat/9781847970176 ), and it can also be had from Amazon, though I personally always make an effort to buy elsewhere if I can. I don’t want to feed the Octopus any more than necessary.
     I almost hesitate to pick out an example of techniques from inside the book, because there are so very many of them that I found interesting. But here is a single instance of beautifully illustrated example; photographs in the book are by Astrid Barndal (should be an umlaut in there but I can’t get Blogger to make one). The size of the hands show it is a large model.

     The photo above illustrates part of a treatise on painting, a whole chapter containing very intriguing ideas about how to do a variety of techniques.
     The book also has a nice section on a way to make trees, not the traditional model railroad way, but interesting and worth trying. In fact, that’s my response to a lot of what I’ve read in this book: I want to try it.
     I’m sure this book is not for everyone, but for anyone interested in getting some new ideas on materials or methods, or perhaps better understanding a technique you already use, it’s outstanding. If you’re a “book person” as I am, I am sure you would enjoy this book.
Tony Thompson