Akira 2

Express way.

One of the larger features of the Japanese urban landscape is the raised expressways that wind their way through the cities. Of course this is a good opportunity to get some serious level changes on the board.

The board is made up from 300mm x 300mm lasered squares and the expressway preferably had to fit this. Each 'section' is supported underneath with a concrete stanchion (made from chemiwood) and has two roadways on top, each side has one way traffic.

The intention is to have lights both underneath (in a limited capacity) and on the expressway itself. I do have some photos of the top lit up but I can't find them at the moment. The road surface is medium grit sandpaper and everything else is either lasered or made from chemiwood.

ttfn

Akira 1

To keep you going until a proper commission post early next week here is something for the first block of flats for my Akira/manga/anime project (done a few years ago but it's good to get it down).

The Japanese cityscape is quite different to what I'm used to and with having an interest in anime, manga, plamodel and wargaming it seemed only right to start a project including them.

As I tend to concentrate on the terrain aspect of any project the first thing to tackle was a simple block of flats. The vast majority of Japanese buildings are built separately from their neighbours (an earthquake damage prevention measure), even the very large ones so they lend themselves to being build individually.

I've got several thousand and photos of the buildings in urban japan now and picking a generic looking block of flats was fairly simple (lots of them look very similar). First off was to pick a decent floor size and start drawing. The flats are about 190mm x 120mm which seemed to be the best compromise. One of the intentions is to have accessible interiors and so each floor is removable. All the figures are based on 25mm and there'll be a separate blog post on the figures and vehicles at a later date.

The walls are lasered and consist of two layers stuck together which helps joining the corners and sticking in the window frames.

Below is a rough sequence of the build for the first flats. The outside is complete but I'm still working on the shop interior and internal walls for the flats. I'm still actually debating whether having removable floors will be game friendly. The other option is to have floor plans for each building on the side of the gaming table and figures are placed on them instead... It's still up for debate though.

The shop is lit with led strips and there is some progress on the shop interior but not really enough to show at the moment. I've also started on a basement bar but since starting I've changed the arrangement of what the buildings sit on (again, more on which later) and there's still quite a bit to do on it both on making it fit the new arrangement and actually finishing it.

ttfn

Better late than never...

Happy New Year to everyone :-)

Got a bit busy before Christmas and have been away over the holidays but regular service should resume in a week or so.

In the mean time here are a few pictures of a 28mm scale Japanese wajo from the Imjin War that was made a few years ago. I'm afraid the pictures haven't been edited as I've only just found them again.

ttfn

In the Peninsular

Off to the Peninsular again but this time in 15mm.

Got a few buildings to do in this scale and the first was a simple church, the rest to follow as and when they are done.

I was given a few reference photos and have plenty in my own collection but the brief was fairly loose. The walls were lasered from 2mm acrylic an the pantiles were small scale plastic sheeting. The details were made from microstrip along with the doors. A gentle texture was applied to the walls then the whole lot was painted.

The base was textured with gloop, painted and then some choice growies were applied.

You'll have to forgive the choice in figures for scale as I don't have any 15mm Peninsular figures lol

ttfn