18/09/2014

The Sparklin' Pulsar

Time to start producing the board I aim for! The Besenval port slums. I cannot stress enough how inspirational Colin from Leadpile and his Ferrograd has been for me. I don't expect to get a quarter of his board, for sure, but I will be happy if I get a humble space to roll some dice on.
I got a couple of MDF buildings from Bandua Wargames. Though they belong to the 'designed for Infinity' range, they can be used for any sci-fi ambientation. You may want to check the rest of their scenery, they provide nice unexpensive options for urban sci-fi settings.

I primed grey on the outside and beige inside, but I thought I could do something more. So a piece of foamboard was the beginning:
 
Now we have some floor...
 
What was this building going to be? I thought a small tavern could do nice:
 
The bar was easy. Shame I didn't manage to build a draught tap
 
The walls just looked too empty and clean, so I thought some posters were in order:
 
I may have to look for resources on the web and print them
 
Using some other bits I got a couple of tables and seats:
 

So this is the filthy aspect of it
 
The problem was that the outer looking of the tavern was too shiny. Unacceptable! No (dis)respectful adventurers were getting any action close to such a fancy structure! To get a proper weathering effect I should need an airbrush, I guess. Of course I don't have such a tool but... I got some primer sprays. So I went out to the window and got some strange colours on it (additional effects added with regular brush):
 

Now it's looking properly dirty
 
And then for the final touch. I needed a sign. I thought of a plain sign over the doors, but then I came with this cheap solution, thanks to some coffee stirrers:

A hanging sign would look better less shabby
 
Here you can see what Firefly has done to me. You may have at some time spotted a Blue Sun Corporation container in some of my battle reports. I kept on track and wrote some Chinese here too:
 
That's Chinese for The Sparkling Pulsar according to Google Translator. If anyone out there proves me wrong, I would gladly correct those
 
Kinda challenging for me, both signs are English on one side and Chinese on the other. Phew!

But finally you can see the tavern finished:
 
I forgot to show, the building also has doors, but I don't think I will be using them
 
So here it is, my first step to build up this slum neighborhood I have in mind. More coming soon. Well, or not that soon, you never know when it comes into my erratic way of approaching my projects :D. But coming anyway.

10 comments:

  1. Looks good. Nice idea with the signs it makes it easier to store and you can use it as different buildings just by changing the signage.

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    1. Thanks! It is not exactly a beauty, but I hope the shabby aspect will fit in the general idea I have in mind for the board (whenever I manage to have something worth of that name!)

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  2. Impresionantes! me gusta MUCHO, sí señor.

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    1. ¡Gracias! El edificio es bueno y creo que da juego. Lo demás son simplemente los detalles que me gusta añadir a las cosas para darles vida :)

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  3. I like how it turned out. I also really liked your photoshop drawing.

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    1. Thank you for the comment and for stopping by! :)

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  4. I kept thinking of how the building can be modified to look like the Mos Eisley Cantina every time I looked at it. Sigh ... I have too much Scifi on my mind. Nice work by the way. :)

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    1. Haha, I'm afraid it's not big enough! But that would be definitely cool indeed! Thank you!!

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  5. I was lucky enough to get to play a few games on Colins Ferrograd table. Its great, really atmospheric.

    I like the solution that you came up with for the signs. I hope that Besenval expands rapidly :)



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    1. Wow, I cannot expect to reach that level of commitment, I will declare myself satisfied with a few functional buildings and (hopefully) a port area suitable for gaming. Thanks for the support!

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