*
Welcome, Guest. Please login or register.
March 29, 2024, 05:55:12 AM

Login with username, password and session length

Donate

We Appreciate Your Support

Members
Stats
  • Total Posts: 1686610
  • Total Topics: 118113
  • Online Today: 698
  • Online Ever: 2235
  • (October 29, 2023, 12:32:45 AM)
Users Online

Recent

Author Topic: Any Advice on City Building? [Progress thread 31/7/20]  (Read 4542 times)

Offline Warren Abox

  • Scientist
  • Posts: 432
    • War In A Box - New Location!
Any Advice on City Building? [Progress thread 31/7/20]
« on: July 16, 2020, 01:41:06 AM »
I'm looking to start a new urban table for 6mm, and wonder if anybody has any advice to offer.  I've looked around, but most of the urban tables that I've seen are either bombed out ruins or near-city suburbs with lots of farms and woods.  I'm looking for a central downtown business district here for street fighting.

Here's what I've got planned so far:

  • Modular set up with six modules that measure roughly 9-inches by 12-inches across to fit my storage bin.  I'll be cutting masonite hardboard for the bases.
  • Each base will have a block of matte board (roughly 3mm thick) as curbs/sidewalks with the masonite serving as the roadbed.  Buildings will be 3/4-inch lumber and fixed permanently to the matte boards.  This should allow a good mix of wide roads, alleys, and car parking lots.
  • The buildings, as blocks of wood, won't be enterable.  Action confined to the streets, Pac-Man style.  I'll just paint the upper surface a dark gray to represent that the view has been cut off after the ground floor.
  • One board will incorporate a park on one to break up the grid, allow for green space, and maybe a plaza or fountain or something.
  • Most scatter terrain permanently fixed and trimmed to less than 3/4 height so that the boards can be stacked for transport.  I'm thinking a few mailboxes, traffic lights, planter boxes, and other sidewalk-style scatter.  That will let me put some chain-link fencing up around a vacant lot/construction site
  • The only movable scatter terrain planned will be the cars and concrete barricades.  I may add a bridge or two, so that with a blue drop cloth I can leave an inch gap between boards to represent a river.  Not sure about that one.

The question is...what to do about the store fronts?  Should I just hand paint doors, windows, signs, etc.?  Or can somebody recommend any storefront graphics that I can chop up and print to fit?  Any other aspects of this project that I should consider before I make my first cuts?
« Last Edit: August 01, 2020, 07:52:32 PM by Warren Abox »

Offline PhilB

  • Scientist
  • Posts: 431
    • A Dragontooth Grognard
Re: Any Advice on City Building?
« Reply #1 on: July 16, 2020, 08:10:35 AM »
Storefronts are tricky, since the art and lettering will vary so much by country and period. An urban table for 1943 France will not look the same as 1945 Berlin, with even greater differences for different time periods and locations.

For example, typical French storefronts are often similar to this one, but of course in a city like Paris, there were already many shops emulating more "modern" American styles.



« Last Edit: July 16, 2020, 08:12:41 AM by PhilB »

Offline jon_1066

  • Mad Scientist
  • Posts: 909
Re: Any Advice on City Building?
« Reply #2 on: July 16, 2020, 10:02:05 AM »
Really the first thing is what era?  Then what rules?  How are the figures based?  It's pointless building a great model if your bases won't fit.  If you are urban fighting shouldn't occupying the buildings form a major element so how to represent that without having removable roofs, etc.


Offline Warren Abox

  • Scientist
  • Posts: 432
    • War In A Box - New Location!
Re: Any Advice on City Building?
« Reply #3 on: July 16, 2020, 04:42:43 PM »
Modern street gang fights.  Running affairs where combatants don't want to get bogged down inside static positions.  This will be a run and gun style game in the maze of streets, so interiors aren't needed.

I've never seen a table like this, so I am largely starting from scratch.  Closest was a Mogadishu table covering the entire city, and that is way larger scale than the ten blocks I am looking to build.

Offline Warren Abox

  • Scientist
  • Posts: 432
    • War In A Box - New Location!
Re: Any Advice on City Building?
« Reply #4 on: July 19, 2020, 06:35:29 AM »
Here's what I settled on.  11x9 boards with cardstock sidewalks and cut lumber buildings.  That open block will turn into a park, and obviously it needs more detailing everywhere.  Kinda wish I had gone with 3/4-inch high buildings instead of 1/2-inch.  But it's a good start.

Offline Flinty

  • Librarian
  • Posts: 156
Re: Any Advice on City Building?
« Reply #5 on: July 21, 2020, 01:45:00 PM »
Very neat idea, I like the modular approach.

Building frontages - if you want really a really specific look, how about finding the images that fit your period/setting, stitching them together in a Word Processing document, size, print out and glue to the face of the blocks?

Otherwise I imagine that model railway card stock buildings could be a good source. Cheap, usually plenty of geographically specific architectural styles (time periods might be a bit limited), but easy to scale, print and stick on.

If your scale matches one of theirs, plenty of scatter/street furniture available as well, I have some of the tarmac roads on a roll which I use for 20mm, which is a lot easier than trying to paint neat, uniform road markings.

Offline CookAndrewB

  • Mastermind
  • Posts: 1734
    • 3d designs can be found at Thingiverse
Re: Any Advice on City Building?
« Reply #6 on: July 21, 2020, 03:20:16 PM »
I like the look of this. Will you be facing the buildings as they are, or using them as a basic footprint for building upwards?

Offline PhilB

  • Scientist
  • Posts: 431
    • A Dragontooth Grognard
Re: Any Advice on City Building?
« Reply #7 on: July 21, 2020, 05:55:50 PM »
Is this for 6mm or 10mm figures? When you first posted, I had no idea it would be so low-profile.

Offline fastolfrus

  • Galactic Brain
  • Posts: 5247
Re: Any Advice on City Building?
« Reply #8 on: July 21, 2020, 08:59:07 PM »
Here's what I settled on.  11x9 boards with cardstock sidewalks and cut lumber buildings.  That open block will turn into a park, and obviously it needs more detailing everywhere.  Kinda wish I had gone with 3/4-inch high buildings instead of 1/2-inch.  But it's a good start.

If it's an inner city modern setting those buildings need to be a lot taller.
For 6mm, 1/2 inch would probably look like 2-storey buildings. More suitable for suburbs.
3/4 inch would still look short.
I would probably add another layer of 1/2 inch to some of them and mix in a few bits of 3/4 or even 1 inch. Most cities have a variety of building heights.
Gary, Glynis, and Alasdair (there are three of us, but we are too mean to have more than one login)

Offline Warren Abox

  • Scientist
  • Posts: 432
    • War In A Box - New Location!
Re: Any Advice on City Building?
« Reply #9 on: July 22, 2020, 04:44:15 AM »
This is for 6mm scale.  Thanks for the comments.

Since this is for street fighting, I am cutting off the terrain after the first floor.  Limiting the z-scale like that won't affect the gameplay at all, and will allow access to the 'concrete canyons' where the real action takes place.  A big part of this is storage constraints.  At 1/2-inch building heights I can pack a 36-inch by 24-inch battle into a single portable case.  With room left over for figures, no less!

Good thinking, combing model railroad sites for inspiration.  I need to detail up the frontages with awnings and columns and such still.  At this point, hand painting is probably the way to go.  Won't look as photo-real, but who wants to spend all that time photoshopping and cropping and scaling and trimming printed frontages?  I'm here to paint and play.

Once the buildings are painted and secured, I will hit the surrounding areas with greenery.  Need to know where the buildings live to put hedges and grass verges and paint in some parking lots.  Might skip some of the scatter terrain.  Mailboxes and lamp posts would look nice, but at this scale I'm not sure they are worth the bother and clutter.  If they intrude on the miniature play...fuggedabowdit.

Offline CookAndrewB

  • Mastermind
  • Posts: 1734
    • 3d designs can be found at Thingiverse
Re: Any Advice on City Building?
« Reply #10 on: July 22, 2020, 08:43:32 PM »
Oh, I'm all for the lack of vertical. It looks cool right up until you have to fit my clumsy mitts down between buildings without knocking over everything lol.

I think hand painting should be easy enough. At that scale how much detail is there? Sign print would mostly look like blobs and squiggles I imagine. I think this is really great, and represents a city well!

Offline Warren Abox

  • Scientist
  • Posts: 432
    • War In A Box - New Location!
Re: Any Advice on City Building?
« Reply #11 on: July 22, 2020, 09:56:24 PM »
Thanks for the kind words, Andrew. 

Might as well turn it into a progress thread, eh?  A little wall paint helps separate the buildings from the sidewalks.  I'll have a mix of blocks with small shops and a few big box stores.  Maybe paint one up as a hospital and one as a PD, for objective points.

Any advice on the windows?  My instinct is to go sky-blue, but reference photos make the windows all look darker gray than sky blue.  And I'm not sure if I should use one color of window across the board, of if I should vary window colors based on the walls they are set into.  I think that with the light and dark buildings, that I should vary the window colors to add more contrast to each building, but I'm not entirely sure.

Offline Brandlin

  • Mad Scientist
  • Posts: 851
    • Brandlin
Re: Any Advice on City Building? [Progress Pic added 22/7/20]
« Reply #12 on: July 27, 2020, 11:28:36 AM »
This will be a run and gun style game in the maze of streets, so interiors aren't needed.

Personally I don't think that grid-pattern (mostly) american block layout of buildings lends itself to this style of game... it certainly isn't 'maze-like'. You end up with a lot of long line of sight roads. You can break this up a bit with differing height buildings, over hangs, walkways and improvised barricades and street furniture, but to my european eyese it never looks right.

Offline CookAndrewB

  • Mastermind
  • Posts: 1734
    • 3d designs can be found at Thingiverse
Re: Any Advice on City Building? [Progress Pic added 22/7/20]
« Reply #13 on: July 27, 2020, 08:20:09 PM »
I looked around at images of epic scaled terrain and frankly I found black windows to be the best look. As an example:





I believe that those buildings are in the 3-6mm scale range and I find this to look most natural. If you look at something like a photo of a city from a plane (stunning sunset/sunrise reflections aside) this is how windows look in the day:


It isn't real fancy, but it would feel realistic, and I think this is how I would skin that cat. On some of the lighter colored buildings, I think this will look great. It might be a bit tough to see on darker buildings.







Offline Warren Abox

  • Scientist
  • Posts: 432
    • War In A Box - New Location!
Re: Any Advice on City Building? [Progress Pic added 22/7/20]
« Reply #14 on: July 28, 2020, 12:31:50 AM »
You end up with a lot of long line of sight roads. You can break this up a bit with differing height buildings, over hangs, walkways and improvised barricades and street furniture, but to my european eyese it never looks right.

We do loves our elbow room, don't we?  Long, straight ranges shouldn't be a huge problem for the game I have in mind.  For the most part.  It might come into play if this table gets used for vehicular combat, but that's a gravy genre.


I looked around at images of epic scaled terrain and frankly I found black windows to be the best look. As an example:

It isn't real fancy, but it would feel realistic, and I think this is how I would skin that cat. On some of the lighter colored buildings, I think this will look great. It might be a bit tough to see on darker buildings.

Those do look nice.  Unlike my builds, they have the benefit of that third dimension.  To compensate, I went with dark gray windows outlined in black with a touch of light gray reflections.  That way I've got every color covered.

 

Related Topics

  Subject / Started by Replies Last post
3 Replies
3630 Views
Last post January 03, 2007, 03:36:48 PM
by Prof.Witchheimer
21 Replies
7218 Views
Last post November 10, 2008, 11:50:12 AM
by The_Wisecrack
30 Replies
9426 Views
Last post August 12, 2009, 02:35:29 PM
by gamer Mac
82 Replies
19777 Views
Last post November 29, 2014, 07:31:02 PM
by chrisw
0 Replies
878 Views
Last post February 27, 2015, 06:00:37 PM
by adamish