Mean Streets: The Warriors & More (High Hats)

[Cat]

Thanks, Mike!
 
Yeah, the cars definitely have a lot of personality to add to the story now.  That dusty rusty VW Thing with Vermont plates has seen a lot of hard use on dirt road mountain passes, but it seemed like a safe car to use for a trip to the Big Apple.
 
Yes, you're quite welcome to share!
 
After a couple of false starts and delays, printing is finally underway for scenery.  I just had a couple of spools of filament dropshipped to the friend whose printer is humming away right now.
 
Starting off with half a dozen subway cars scaled for 1/64 so I can get a start on bringing them to life, and a small section of elevated track.  With a bit of the track structure in had, I can finalise plans for adding station platforms and calculating the width need for street and sidewalks that will run underneath it.
 
With street maths nailed down, then I can do a more accurate board plan and work out what all are needed
 for buildings to fill it out.

[Cat]

Names added for the WIP gangs.  Written with a .05 Micron Art pen and sealed with a light spray of Dullcote to make sure it doesn't smudge while I continue painting.

The Warriors fandom wiki lists all the names that are used in the video game, it's always a good starting place.
 
That provided a great list for the Orphans. 

I used some of the names for the High Hats, and filled in others that I preferred, including the affiliate Low-Hat artists in berets and spray paint holsters with Roman mime names and Sabine (I think they have a ménage à quatre going or something).
 
Decided on all my own names for the Boppers, this crew strikes me as having launched a top Hip Hop group led by DJ Bop.


****edit***
Getting "Path Cannot Be Empty" while trying to post with photo.  Could make the post without photo, but get the same message trying to modify post by adding photo.

****edit edit***
IT Has fixed the problem now.

[CapnJim]

I started getting that same message the other day.  The mods are aware of the issue.  It did cause me to finally start using MyGallery here in LAF to embed photos.  Works like a champ.

[Cat]

IT has fixed the photo loading problem now, WIP pic added 2 posts down.
 
CapnJim, I'm still traumatised and bitter over the whole Photobucket thing.
: 3

[mikedemana]

I'm still traumatised and bitter over the whole Photobucket thing.

Tell me about it! When I am absolutely bored, I go back to my blog and find where I left off editing my old posts to use uploaded photos rather than the Photobucket linked ones. I just don't have the heart to plow into it and get it all done over a week. Can't I hire a student or someone to do this stuff for me...? Will no one rid me of this meddlesome Photobucket problem...?? 

Mike Demana

[CapnJim]

Heck, I can't even find my Photobucket password...

Nice job with the names, by the way...

[Cat]

Orphans, Mr. Rico, elevens of them!
Elevens, Mr. Spock?
22 to be precise, Captain.

The Orphans' names all came from The Warriors fan wiki which provides the names given to them in the video game, none are identified by name in the movie.

There are 10 specialist types.
 
Sully, the leader, has his trademark menacing bent razor. 

Jesse, the top lieutenant, has traded in his old toilet counterweight for a tire iron.  When getting down to the final detail painting, I realised that I needed to do a little re-carving on Jesse to roll up the sleeves of his shirt — Apache Ramos, the actor, has Apache and a Puerto Rican flag tattooed on his arm.  Buzz and Mac also got tire irons, this crew specialises in hubcap and tire raids.
[edit: found an old interview where APache Ramos identified the weapon he was holding — no one has ever been able to correctly guess from the screen image.]

Troy, Wally, and Bugs are wearing vests.  They got designated as the artists as they can stick the cans of spray paint in their vest pockets while climbing up to tag high places.  A crew this size is also good for tagging raids.

Del, Monk, and Scooter are the sprinters for messengers and scouts.

In the movie, Orphans is written across the middle of Sully's back.  I moved the lettering up across the shoulders where I would have more room to write with my trusty .005 Micron Art pen and be more visible on the tabletop.  It was still a tight squeeze on the scrawnier wimps.

[CapnJim]

Nice kids.  They just hang out with the wrong element....

[mikedemana]

Those look great! And yes, a gang that size could go on a tagging spree that would be tough for another gang to stop... 

Mike Demana

[Cat]

Dateline: NYC, June 1979 — Brownsville, Brooklyn, on an odd-numbered day.

At long last terrain work is underway!  There are yet more technical difficulties with getting the 3D printing rolling, but someday there will be piles of PLA to paint...

First building is ready, a Greenlight 1/64 Texaco station (the rest will be 3D printed).  Out of the box, the model is very pristine and would look right at home in a Texaco ad, but not on any street in NYC.

I needed to fabricate a new roof for the building and the pumps, add armoured window shutters, lots of signs and weathering, and a few interior bits for texture.  The model came with 1960s style pumps, I got another Greenlight Texaco station facade that came with better 1970s pumps to swap in, and cut up a 1mm O-ring for the pump hoses.

With this model in hand, it was easy to nail down the time period of the game for June '79, at the peak of the faux oil crisis to add a lot of story telling with a single model.  With the US oil companies using the Iranian Revolution as an excuse to choke off supplies and [successfully] leverage Congress to lift price restrictions that had been in place since the OPEC Embargo of '72, New York was one of the hardest hit states.

NY implemented Odd-Even day rationing based on license plate numbers.  Special legislation was passed to allow stations to charge by the half-gallon at the pump, as long as there was a big sign stating the per gallon price (pumps at the time couldn't register over 99.9¢).  These are actual June Texaco prices from a photo of a station in Manhattan.

It's NYC, so of course there's plenty of litter and graffiti.

The University of the Streets is an archaic lettering style for '79.  It's based on a Brooklyn photo from '72.  But it's pretty well weathered too, so who knows how long it's been on this wall.

The NYPD Brownsville Precinct styles itself as Fort Zinderneuf, as addressed on the rear wall graffiti (the old station house was yellow brick).  The game board is set in the Broadway Junction Station area of Brownsville.

There will be a smaller building going up against the other rear corner.  While it's a bit away from their established turf, the Orphans have used that lower roof as a scouting post.  Probably while arranging to sell some tires to the station in a cash deal in the back alley.
: 3
 

[Grumpy Gnome]

Lots to love here in this thread. The Texaco station certainly evokes a sense of nostalgia for this former Upstate New Yorker.

[Cat]

Thanks, GG!

1st 3D printed building is ready for the tabletop: Broadway — East New York Station on the Fulton Street Line, right next to the Broadway Junction Station on the elevated Jamaica Line.

STL file from the super Urban range by Corvus Games Terrain, printed at 82% size to bring it down to 1/64 scale for 25–28mm figures and the trains will match my fleet of 1/64 die-cast cars.

In June 1979.  NYCTA had just announced the big "We're Changing" campaign to update the station signs across the system with the now standard coloured dots for each line.  It would take some years to fully implement, and Brownsville Brooklyn would not be at the top of the list for upgrades.

It took a fair amount of google-fu and puzzling things out to make a plausible representation of what may have been on the signs at this station before the change.  The Tareyton and WKTU-FM 92 DIsco signs are actual ads from '79.  There were 'Hey, New York... This Bud's For You' ads, but I made my own variant featuring the Wonder Wheel and stubby beer bottle that are prominent in The Warriors.

For scenarios where one gang is trying to make from the elevated line to the subway, this station will be closed and they'll have to run further to the next stop.

"I'm sick of waiting for trains."
—Vermin

There's been some technical difficulty when the printers melted down on a hot day.  We're waiting for replacement parts now before production can resume.

[FramFramson]

There's been some technical difficulty when the printers melted down on a hot day.  We're waiting for replacement parts now before production can resume.

Wait... the prints or the printer? Wow, yikes, now that's a new one!

[Cat]

Wait... the prints or the printer? Wow, yikes, now that's a new one!

PLA melted down and gummed up the nozzles.  Friend who is doing the printing has run into this before and says he should have know better than to run them on such a hot day.  Hit all 3 printers that were going at once.  They've been running pretty constantly for about five years now.  Usually this can be cleared up by warming them up a bit a using a brass rod to clean it out.  Not this time. 

[KD47]

I dig the gas and subway stations.   Well done.