Akira catch up (picture heavy)

Some of you may remember that I started an Akira/manga style project a few years ago and as usually happens with projects of mine it was left for a bit but now it's come around again for some more work on it.

The basic premise is for a game set in a near future, slightly distopian Tokyo with a typical array of small mecha, gangs and militarised and private police forces. Some of the figures and mecha have been painted, enough for a game even but as with all my projects, it's all about the terrain.

A small selection of the figures can been seen here and more will be added in the following weeks, months, years etc lol.

Firstly, a small recap of the buildings and design intent so far.

The basic game layout will be a modular 3' x 3' using 300mm squares. My normal terrain boards are 600mm x 600mm but the smaller size allows for ease of storage and a bit more modularity. The small size of the game board is because it's taking long enough to make buildings for this size, let alone anything larger lol. Below are a couple of screen shots of some of the cad work I've done so far.

The project isn't following any particular plan, I'm just adding to it as and when although I really need to go back and finish some of the buildings and vehicles I've started.

Below are a few shots of some of the buildings I've got so far, some need finishing as mentioned but they are mostly done on the exterior. One thing to mention is that some of the buildings lift off floor by floor but I think for the game this won't happen, it'll just be a series of printed floor plates on the side of the table so players know which floor and building they are in.

For the buildings that lift off, there's still quite a bit of work to get the interiors done.

Of course, what's a project without all the little things that make it come alive! One thing that's noticeable about Japan is the amount of stuff that gets crammed into such small spaces. For gaming terms this would be impossible but I'm trying to give it a go. The roof tops have an awful lot of bits and pieces and although I've started to fill the current roofs up there's still a bit to go. I've also made a start on some street furniture beginning with the ever famous vending machine!

The next thing is the expressways that snake their way through between the buildings (and tend to appear in anime quite often). Again, these fit the 300mm 'template' and come ever so close to the buildings but this is the actual case in many a situation. There are lights on the top and will be underneath as well as one of the general ideas is to light the whole board and potentially play with the house lights off... Let's see how that goes lol.

Next we go underground to allow for true multi-level gaming. I thought it would be good if each 300mm board could be lifted off to reveal basements and an tube network. The tube station has been the most progressed but I've also stated on some basement bars and will probably do a sewer.

And finally, just for a bit of fun I made a small building site, just to break up the amount of work lol.

So, as you can see, plenty done but plenty still to do...

ttfn