Cars' Buildings For My 28MM Gangsters (New:Spiderman Flatiron Bldg)

[War In 15MM]

Thanks to all for the kind words.  pistolpete, in gathering together the 35 or so buildings for my gangster city I decided to use a wide variety of building options: Old Glory's Chicago Gangster Buildings, K-Line, Plasticville, RailKing O gauge, Lemax and Dept. 56 ceramic buildings and repurposed toys from Cars as well as the Flatiron building from Spiderman... probably a few others as well.  I am hoping that by painting them in a common style I will tie them together as a unified whole.  I haven't set the buildings out on the table yet, but I think it should work out pretty well.

[ivor13]

Always amazed at how you can transform toys into incredible tabletop buildings 
Great stuff as usual!

[tin shed gamer]

Some simple yet intelligent repurposing.Look forward to seeing more.
Mark.

[War In 15MM]

They were fun to do.  I'm glad you like them.  I'll see if I can put together some before and after pictures of a few of the porcelain/ceramic Lemax and Dept. 56 buildings I've been working over for this project.

[Avidwargamer]

Good job on repurposing these toys.  If I hadn't seen the before photos I wouldn't have believed it! 

[tin shed gamer]

That would be great.As its both interesting and motivating (he's managed to find the time so get your arse in gear and do some work on your own buildings)
It's interesting to see how you repurpose 'o'gauge and pre built toys.As I've started a similar project repursuing card 'ho' buildings for 28mm ,So far I've managed five(technically six as one is two structures on the same base)for under £20.plus a 28mm Sarrisa chateau (birthday present) tweaked to fit in.
So with that little bit of context I'm definitely interested in the progress of someone who's been daft enough to manage over thirty buildings.
Mark.

[Marine0846]

Excellent buildings.
In my pile of stuff I have those buildings.
I plan to use them in zombie games.

[War In 15MM]

I decided to toss in a few of my Lemax & Dept. 56 into the show-and-tell.  The upside of these buildings is that they work well with 28mm and offer a lot different and interesting building options not available with purpose-built RPG buildings.  Also I get mine pretty cheap at the swap meet so for between $1 on the low end and $10 on the high end I can get some interesting stuff during the holiday season.  On the downside is the problem that they are often covered with holiday décor like snow and wreaths, and the ones I get are often broken.  Since porcelain is impossible for me to grind or cut, I have to hide the holiday décor and repair the breaks with Milliput and plastic to make them acceptable for use with my non-Lemax & Dept. 56 buildings.  When repainting them I tend to avoid complete redos and add as much paint as I feel is necessary to make them blend with my other buildings and hide any repair work I have down.  I’ve attached some before and after pictures below.  The fish cannery will be part of my harbor area rather than part of the city proper.  It was the most damaged at time of purchase… much of the dock had been broken off.  I should also mention that I still have to add some homemade decals to my theater.

[War In 15MM]

The porcelain buildings are obviously more interesting to me than to the LAF members.  It may simply be that I don’t do a very good job at showing the bits and pieces of my projects.  I remember that I tried something like this with my African Adventure collection awhile back, and it fell flat, but when the gallery was posted it received 80  comments (not including my responses) and nearly 28,000 hits.  With that in mind, I will soldier on with another building idea for my gangsters.  A few years ago at the swap meet I found the Flatiron building from the Spider-Man Sky Rider Playset .  It is the only skyscraper-style building I have ever found that would work with 28mm figures.  It required a little makeover work with Evergreen plastic and Milliput to hide some of the “playset” elements of the building, but it came out pretty well in the end. 

[Mason]

That certainly has possibilities, and you have done a great job on it.
 

I REALLY wish that you had not posted this, though, as I bought three of the CARS sets when you began this thread.
 



Regarding the porcelain buildings: Where you have done a great job in making them look better, they do not really do it for me as gaming buildings.
I think it is the 'roundedness' of all the edges.
Saying that, though, the Cannery is much closer to a real building and that does look good.
 

[War In 15MM]

Mason, you are bang-on right with you comment about the "roundness" of all the edges of the porcelain buildings.  Once I get a color blend with the rest of my buildings, I need to deal with that "roundness" thing.  What I have been looking at recently as I think about that very thing is how to reduce or disguise that look, and right now what I'm working on to address that is sidewalk trees that will help mask the porcelain village look of the buildings.  I'm feeling pretty good about that right now, but you never really know until the layout is set up, but that is part of the fun of these projects... at least it is for me.

[tin shed gamer]

Another interesting piece of repurposing .
I like it as a building ,but exceeds my storage so I'd have more than likely tried to make two shorter 'tall' buildings,out of it .But it's going to be one of those buildings that no matter how much stuff you put on the table the games going to end up gravitating around it .
It makes me want to make a Curt Russell figure and a low tech kite,then a team of paranormal investigators, and a giant ape. It's going to get some use i think.(if a little stereotyped )
Look forward to seeing more!
Mark.

[Elk101]

That does look effective, you've made a very nice job of it.