Any Advice on City Building? [Progress thread 31/7/20]

[CookAndrewB]

I think the storefronts look nice. The addition of the different awnings and such do a great job to give the impression of different store fronts.

It may be a bit of a moot point now, but I do find that it is helpful to make a stencil for adding road markings on. It takes 10-15 minutes worth of work to make the stencil, but then I can stipple on road markings until the cows come home.

Example of crosswalks:


And center lines:


The stencil was made from a piece of cardboard with standardized markings cut out. Then I just line up the stencil with the width of the road and mash out lines. The stippling allows for lines to look faded or worn without much fuss. Just less paint and less tapping.

Nothing wrong with giving it the old free-hand, just something that I've found to have worked for me over the years.

[Warren Abox]

Stencils.  Yep.  Gotta add that to my toolbox

Here is the latest.  Some cars, trash cans, newspaper boxes, and mailboxes to add more 3D stuff.  Got the park with statue and WWII Sherman memorial in there as well.

[Pattus Magnus]

That looks really sharp. I’m working on some 6mm Cold War stuff at the moment and will soon need to build some towns and villages. Doing something similar to what you’ve put together would be just the ticket! Thanks for posting about your project!

[Teardrop World]

An effective result, remind me of an old top view video game about theft and cars.
Should be a blast with plenty of trafic and pedestrian. Love it! Thinking of small scale now......must resist......

Cheers

[CookAndrewB]

Coming along wonderfully! Should be easy enough to add to at some point too. Rivers, bridges, etc.

[Dr. Zombie]

That is looking great. You could perhaps add some gubbins to the roofs of the buildings, airconditioners waterheaters and what have you all the stuff that usually goes on top of roofs. To break up the large surface areas.

[PhilB]

That is looking great. You could perhaps add some gubbins to the roofs of the buildings, airconditioners waterheaters and what have you all the stuff that usually goes on top of roofs. To break up the large surface areas.

Actually, I was thinking it's better to be flat and featureless, for three reasons.
1) You could set figures on the roof, and play as if they were inside the frontage shops, watching and firing into the street.
2) The buildings are supposed to represent multi-story buildings, so the low, flat tops are an abstraction anyway.
3) Storage: If they are flat and featureless, they can be stacked for transportation and storeage, and the buildings' thickness will protect any fixed clutter terrain that is positioned at street level.

It's a very cool project, and is coming together nicely.

[CookAndrewB]

Agreed, Phil. If for no other reason, I'd leave them blank so that they stack neatly. Sure, fancy roof tiles and tall buildings look nice, but nothing beats storing everything stacked up in one box! If you can pull a table worth of terrain out of a single box AND it looks great, that is the height of joy in my book.

[Pattus Magnus]

Another option for the rooftops would be to do something similar to what is done already on the sides, and paint on some details. I’m thinking along the lines of different shades of grey to indicate the roofs of different buildings, of different shades in irregular parts to indicate repairs, etc. That wouldn’t cause any storage problems but would add visual interest.

[Warren Abox]

Stacking and storage is the big reason for it.  Very limited space in the house means it is always a first consideration.  I can pack all the terrain and should have room for all the figs in this one box.

I like the idea of darker gray roofs for the one story buildings, though.  If only to make it a little less monotonous.  May even be able to squeeze some air conditioning units in there - not permanently affixed to the buildings, but something you can drop on while setting up.

[CookAndrewB]

That's what I'm talking about! Pure magic.

[Warren Abox]

Closing out with a shot of the final look of the place, complete with figures.  Had to throw grids on the top of the buildings to comply with the needs of the game, and that breaks up some of the monotony of all that flat gray space.  Thanks for the advice/help, guys.

[CookAndrewB]

Good looking addition, Warren. The grids actually look very good. I may swipe this idea for some of my flat roofed buildings, in fact.

[Warren Abox]

Here's a couple more shots, with a few Styrofoam sphere trees to add a bit of height and blocking terrain to the proceedings.

[CookAndrewB]

The trees are a nice touch. At this scale they work very well. Feels like all you would need to make some bushes/hedges would be little clusters of clump foliage.