Urban Boards

[dijit]

Ok, my minis for my Bladerunner/Ghost in the Shell styled board have arived, now i just need the board. For urban boards there seems to be two main ways of doing them. The first where you have a base board with the streets marked on, which buildings are then placed on. The other has a plain (normally grey) base board and the buildings have pavements attached to them which then make up the streets. Now I just can't decided which to go for, especially as I want to avoid an american 'all roads go in straight lines and meet and right angles' type setup.
The first has the advantage that I can detailed the roads, etc whilst that is much more difficult on a plain base, however it easily succombs to the american style as mentioned above. Whilst the second often ends up with plain roads, gaps int he pavements, between houses, etc.
Any help, suggestions, good advice, etc?
Thanks

[dijit]

Just occured to me, there might be a third way, which combines the best of both worlds. Plain boring base boards, then large pavement pieces, which the buildings are placed on.
You are now of course free to forget my odd ramblings...

[joroas]

Take a look at Dave Bickley's boards.  They seem to work well.

http://talesfromghq.webs.com/apps/photos/album?albumid=4140758

[uti long smile]

Here's my previous thread with my Urban Street set-up using CNC stuff.

http://leadadventureforum.com/index.php?topic=13201.30

Personally I'd lay the pavements and roads on top of the baseboard - but I like to have maximum flexibility.

[dijit]

Thanks guys,
Uti - how wide are the roads on the CNC stuff, I'm guessing they're around 5" or so? Though what I've like to avoid is the 'square' look of the CNC boards, so few european cities have streets like laid out like that (Milton Keynes is probably the one exception!)

[Cory]

Odd shaped streets tend to create odd shaped buildings. It is amazing what just a few buildings that are out of square can do towards breaking up the grid.

As to detailing the streets the solution I have been most happy with is a black cloth highlighted in greys with buildings on their own bases. If I am feeling artisitic I add street lines with white or yellow chalk that can then be washed out later.

[HerbyF]

I would use a grey or asphault/black board and build my buildings like I do Western buildings. with the sidewalks attatched.

[Red Orc]

You could make buildings with paths/sidewalks/pavements/whatever attached, but make the footprints of those pieces different sizes (300mm x 200mm, 100mm x 200mm, 500mm x 200mm etc). This will obviously produce a lot of right-angled corners but not necessarily a 'square' plan.

Then make some small oddly-shaped (triangular, curved and polygonal with one right angle) pieces (pocket-parks, bits of pavement with newpaper stands and telephone boxes, fast food stalls etc).

Then you can use those to fill in the gaps/make 'curved' streets.

I quickly sketched this to give you an idea of what I mean - I hope it works:

[dijit]

Thanks Red Orc, it was something similar to that that I was thinking in the secondpost.
Duncan

[Dr. The Viking]

Thanks Red Orc, it was something similar to that that I was thinking in the secondpost.
Duncan

Splendid Duncan. Now go have it done before Åcon. 

[dijit]

Splendid Duncan. Now go have it done before Åcon. 

!