24/07/2017

Solving the problem of dwelling

At least at 28mm scale and for a lowlife neighbourhood in which living standards are not particularly high ;)

Where to begin. My urban board is quite crowded by now, I know. I don't need more buildings. But... oh, yes, I need them. From time to time an idea strikes your head and then you have to turn it into something real. That's what happened to me with this. I saw he raw materials ans I knew I had to do this, I had no real choice. I had a couple of used air refresheners and a tiny box...

I also have lots of bits and pieces of card and plastic
Ta-da, a couple of small dwellings, no more than dirty slums of the underhive, but kind of luxury ones, having their own courtyard and all :D

EDIT: Here's the raw material. The interesting thing is not just the cube shaped box, but the holes on the top, allowing me to play with volumes, tubes, chimneys or whatever. Of course a mere piece of cardboard will make it, but I was lucky enough to have that work done!

You can bet I've also kept the sticks. Still don't know what for, but I've kept them

 So, with some grey primer on them they look this way:

With some grey spray on them they look more like what they are supposed to be

From this point on it all was just a matter of details. What would a regular citizen of the average slums have in the courtyard? I kept it simple, mainly because I really didn't have many bits I could use here; I had to improvise with the rubbish I had at hand...

Cozy place

Maybe not that cozy, yet functional
Let's go on some of the details. The laundry at the first one is made of actual cloth, the same old piece I use for drying the brushes and so. I simply cut some little custom pieces and painted over. The well is nothing but a spare piece from a tap, which I kept after some home repairs.

I you just dare to drink from there...
The flower pots are made with little pieces and bristles from an old brush. The garden table is just the spare button you get when you buy new trousers.

I honestly hope to not be needing that...

About the other one, the power generator is the cap of a superglue jar with some greenstuff wires. This house is more sinister, why would someone need extra power? What can possibly be under that canvas? Hmmm

Once again, the canvas is made of my old cloth for painting
They are super easy to make, and provide some triviality, some prosaism, to my board. Just regular houses where normal people lives. In WH40K terms that may be not much, but I'm not disserting about social status right now, ahem.

Best thing of all is that they are so easily stackable!

Space is an issue in real life too
This is it, my housing solutions in a budget. Essentially zero cost and almost no time-consuming, so efficiency rate is quite satisfactory. I'm getting fond of this...

22 comments:

  1. Nice! Love the washing! The painting on the generator is very effective too.

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    1. Thanks! Everything is pure improvisation, I just glued the things as they came out of the bits box and then thought of a purpose for them :D

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    1. Thank you! I'm into these cheap'n'easy solutions lately, I guess it's quite RT-ish. The 'on a budget' theme is no more than an excuse to build nonsense stuff :D

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  3. Very clever and very cool result! You could easily make an entire district of these with different add-ons - a lean-to, or a canvas-covered outside eating area perhaps? Maybe make one of them a little bar with a serving hatch and lots more tables and chairs? Brilliant idea :)

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    1. Great idea, Have one with a beat up old car being worked on. Another with raised garden or green house. Just because its the oppressive 40k universe. Doesn't mean that people will not want their hobbies when they are off work. :D

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    2. Haha, this is the best thing of all, the mutual feedback :D
      I had plans for larger buildings made of foamboard with that kind of stuff. My main issue is storage, but I'll definitely will revisit the idea at some point. The 'vertical board' thing is something I've been envisioning for a whle, and I'd love it to be full of... well, just regular stuff, shops, clothes lines, AC units... the kind of things you expect to see in any settlement of any kind.
      Thanks for the ideas, chaps!

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    1. Thank you! Really easy and even more important -terribly fun to build!

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  5. That clothes line idea was brilliant! Brilliant!

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    1. Thank you! But that's the kind of stuff you don't usually see on boards and I think it's a shame. What I try to do is to populate a city, not a mere board. I may repeat the idea eventually, who knows...

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  6. Quite nice! Looks like a little space that could be a dwelling, or a workshop, or a little trading space, all as needed.

    Now you just need to knock out another dozen of them... maybe a couple stacked ones too.

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    1. Ha, that was what I've been thinking for some time, I'm toying with the idea of a large set of slum dwellings stacked one on top of another, ending up in a towering mountain with terraces, bridges and stuff.
      Honestly, I first thought of that as an Ork settlement, quite in an Anasazi fashion or something like that, but from that the idea soon evolved to my own micro-hive, haha.
      Oh man, I better stop writing, I'm thinking of it again... :D

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    2. Great ideas! Certainly look forward to seeing you follow through on them (one of us has to!)

      Would you mind showing the original air freshener boxes? Not sure that I have seen something like it locally, but the size and shape seem so useful...

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    3. Sure! Just edited the post :) It's essentially a tiny cube, you can make it with card or foamboard, but as I already got it, didn't have to build any!

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    4. Interesting, thanks. Plastic cubes are of course more regular than having to build something, and have the advantage of being ready made!

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  7. Looks awesome. I find that if I have left over putty I can use it to make rubbish bags of variable sizes. Handy to scatter about.

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    1. Hmmm... that's an idea I could seriously use! Duly noted, thank you!!

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  8. ostras tio!
    Genial! muy buena idea! :D

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    1. ¡Gracias! Ya ves que esto se hace con gasto cero, todo con reciclaje :D

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  9. Impressive work! Once again your eye for detail is a key factor to turn everyday items into something magnificent.
    You continue to amaze me.

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    1. Thank you! Well, it's just a matter of seeing 'shapes' and what you get out of them. Once you have the general idea, it's nothing but details and silly stuff :)

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