Gaslight

Well after a hectic Terrain Fest month trying to push through as much stuff as possible, I am feeling a little burnt out.  Of course, that doesn’t mean I have to stop, but now it’s time to slow down and take a more leisurely pace.

I knocked out a couple more small terraces of ‘regular’ buildings.   Nothing that I have not covered before.  Simple prints with only the visible bits being printed to cut down on time and resources.

The collection is growing nicely.  Next up will be another larger feature building followed by some wall sections.  After that, I may move on to something else for a change of scenery.

Before all that, I have a few small details I want to add to my existing buildings.  Nothing too fancy, just some small details to give a more lived-in feel.

Right from the beginning of this project, I had an image in mind that I wanted to try to make these buildings at least a little lived in, whilst still keeping them not completely covered in extras.   I often find that any terrain can look good, but the little bits added at the end help lift it up.

This is my attempt to make what are effectively empty boxes, look a little more lived in.  Adding some life to them so to speak.

I started by adding curtains to all the windows.  To do these I simply added little bits of masking tape stuck inside the buildings.  Masking tape has the added benefits of having a slight texture, is not bright white, is self-adhesive and is thin enough to create a better finish than paper.

Street Signage was a must.  I came up with a selection of different street names.  I designed a small sign template, based on the Sesame Street sign, and embossed the letters onto them for each of my chosen streets.

Albert Road

Holmwood Avenue

Market Street

Baker Street (of course this needed to be there)

I also added some Victorian Science fiction-themed ones.

Floatwood Avenue

Olympus Mons Avenue

Valles Marineris Street

Hellas Planitia View

I painted the signs up in a black and off-white colour scheme.  Of course, the signs are all removable and interchangeable.

Next up was signage and posters.  I knocked up a quick sign frame on a 3D building program and printed it out on a resin printer.  A Google search was all that was needed to find suitable images.

Again, I have kept both the signboard and the picture within it removable, so I can swap images in and out as I please.

After that, I simply added a button battery, left over from tealight candles used during Halloween, to light up the streetlight.

I suppose I should look at adding some details to the insides of the building too as you can see through the windows a bit.   At the very least I should do that to the shops with their bigger display windows.  They will also need shop signs to brighten them up and help them stand out from the townhouses.

As always, I am open to ideas and suggestions.

Just a little update.

I made some signage for the shops and a sign for the police station.  Only minor bits really but I think they add to the buildings somewhat.

I designed them on 3D Builder and printed them out on my resin printer.

Honestly, I have been struggling to get much ‘hobby’ done at the moment.

Contemplating taking a break for a bit to recharge the batteries, or maybe just clearing some stuff out.  Sometimes I find when the hobby space gets too overcrowded it makes it hard for me to get motivated to do anything, which in turn just makes the situation worse as things start to pile up.

This project needed something big.  I toyed with the idea of doing a version of Big Ben, something which I may come back to in the future, but for the moment settled on a large building that could act as either a royal residence or some other government official building.

Still in the early stages with this one as it is rather large.

My apologies for the poor-quality pictures.  At the moment the Sun is like a deadly laser melting everything it can see.

Still quite a bit more to do on this but this is how the painting looks after day 1.

I have some toppers to make for the pillars on the fence line plus I need to plaster the whole model and fix up or cover up some damaged areas.   I also have to come up with some suitable gates for this and possibly some guard boxes too.

While tidying away the terrain from a recent Fallout Wasteland Warfare Battle  I saw this, temporary abandoned project looking back at me from the shelf, and I suddenly had a thought.

I like the look of the fallout setups with the mixture of styles, scatter and colours.  It gives a ‘lived-in’ look with the clutter gathering in layers over time.

When I look at towns and buildings it has a similar feel, with newer buildings often being built around older ones.  Towns also have layers to them with mixed styles and colours.

So, with that in mind, I thought I would look to see what the buildings from this project would look like alongside my other Terrain Fest 2023 project Port Blacksand.

Of course, this is just a quick smashing together of a few of the buildings from both projects to see how they would look and to be honest, I don’t mind it too much at all.  I think selecting just a few of the Port Blacksand buildings to mix in could work.  I would probably make some different doors for them to tie them more into the period of the Gaslight buildings and see how that goes.

I may even try to make a few buildings that incorporate a mix of both styles and see how that looks.

I am open to ideas and would love to hear some input as often getting another opinion on things helps open up new visions.

So, what do you think, yes, no or maybe?

This project is now being closed, something that should have happened a long time ago.   Further updates and the final finished images can be found HERE