Pretty much every model train person has spent a lot of time considering the scale question. Coming from that world, here’s my thoughts on working at small scales. My train is N Scale which is 1:160 scale. The joke amongst N scale guys is that HO stands for Horribly Oversized.
A big part of building a realistic looking n scale layout is learning how to create a feel or an impression. Kind of tricking the viewer into filling in the picture with their own mind. An example of that is putting a couple plastic blocks and little plastic people in this bar.
It’s so small you can’t really see what is inside from a few feet away, but your mind notices there’s something in there and says wow there’s even interiors in the buildings.
That was my philosophy on rigging these 1:96 canon with wire like I did below. I could have spent ten times as long rigging in oversized blocks that would look at least as bad up close as this does, just to create the same basic feel of the canons being rigged.
Then there’s managing expectations. If a person feels that it’s very important for, all of the knots be right, lines served correctly, proper eyebolts etc. Working at 1:87 would probably be pretty frustrating. The point being, what in the train community is usually called the 3 foot rule. Most people looking at a train layout are at least 3 feet from what they’re looking at so even if it looks like total crap in a macro photo, if it looks good from 3 feet away your good. I shoot for 2 feet that way, that way there’s a little buffer. A lot of the things that would be exceptionally hard to do at the smaller scale probably don’t need to be done.
I have two other thoughts that are kind of tied together about working at smaller scales. The first is that you can’t scale the grain in the wood. So wood selection will become more important, and if a person really likes bare wood it might be hard to get a realistic look.
That ties to the other point which is something You have talked about elsewhere, and that is opening up your mind about using other materials. Here’s a web site that shows how to make a sheet of styrene look like wood.
http://www.pacificcoastairlinerr.com/aging_wood/
There is a limit to how small we can make a piece of wood before it becomes unworkable. The white lines above and below the hawse holes on my 1:96 Constitution are .01 X .03” (0.25mmx0.75mm) plastic strip. I don’t think I could have done that with wood and my painting isn’t all that great. You can also see a better look as to how the canons look when viewed normally instead of in macro.
Would be interesting to do a 1:87ish build with a couple people and see what shortcuts we can figure out to produce a good look without pulling all our hair out.