Monday, November 29, 2010

Stuffmart Finis!

Well, it's finished.  Such as it is.  A project like this is always a bit of a frustration to me.  I start with this vision of what I want to accomplish and then end up having to make compromises along the way.  Still, I think this didn't turn out too badly.  It will be featured in my next battle report.  The pics are pretty poor.  Too much light.  I need to figure out how to take better pics.
The 'STUFFMART' letters are foam stickers I got from Hobby Lobby.  I just stuck them on without modification.  I suppose one could paint and drybrush them but I think they look fine as is.
That's pretty much my entire collection of survivors and zeds.  I have four more zeds nearly finished and I also just got the EM4 Thugz.  I bought the whole collection and have four gangers cleaned, based and undercoated.  I'll post them when they're finished.  Next I'll be getting some military and police, but not until I've painted what I've already bought...
A street level view.  The finish on the building is American Accents 'Stone' textured spray paint.  I undercoated with Krylon gray primer.  Then I masked off the sidewalk sections and gave the walls a quick spritz with the stone.  After that dried I added a drybrush of light gray, mostly to accent the edges.  I also painted the sidewalks with the same light gray and highlighted with white.  The window and door frames are card and clear plastic from a sheet protector.  I painted the frames black and highlighted with gunmetal.  I used a light blue marker to scribble on the inside of the plastic to give the windows some 'substance.'  It looks better in person than what these pics show.
View from the other side of the table.  I still need to finish my parking lot.  I'm experimenting with the best way to put white lines on 'pavement'.  So far the best way seems to use a stencil but it is time consuming and the lines can turn out blobby.  It is a pain to go back and touch up the edges with a marker.  That's probably the technique I'll have to use though since nothing else seems to look right.  Even paint markers were a 'fail'.
That's all.  Considering we were traveling for the Thanksgiving holiday, I think I did OK to get this much done!

Until next time, peace.

12 comments:

  1. Thats a damn good job my friend,good work.

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  2. Looks good. I've seen some crappy terrain in my time, but this is good. Remember shop smart, shop Stuffmart!

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  3. QUOTE: "Still, I think this didn't turn out too badly."

    Quite an understatement. You, sir, win this month's inofficial zombie project contest!
    Btw, I think Litko has some wall billboards for $ 2,99. Could be nice to advertise some...stuff.


    Whiteface / Oliver

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  4. I have to agree with Whiteface - you are making an understatement here! It looks realy great and I think the letters look fine - the white on blue is a great contrast and I can see that as company logo easily - especially if you can put Zanazaz's tag line on somewhere - that fits magnificently!

    I think you should be proud of what you have created here - I know I would be! Well done you!

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  5. I have to agree with the comments above. This is an excellent piece of scenery. You certainly should be proud of this project. I look forward to seeing it being used in a game.

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  6. OH WOW ! this is really good stuff, its come up a treat...Stuffmart is that an actual business ? what an unusual name lol, we have a Kmart here in Australia, I got to give it up too you, I wouldn't even attempt to do something like this, way outta my league, congrats man.

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  7. Thank you all! I guess it turned out better than I thought. I suppose the creator always knows where corners were cut, compromises made and mistakes covered up but no one else ever does! It was fun to build and I'm looking forward to getting a game with it soon.

    @Zanazaz: I like that tag line...I may put it in somewhere...

    @Whiteface: Ooooooooo, there was a contest?! I didn't know! What do I win?! :)
    I'll check out Litko - what you're describing is just what I was looking for...

    @Cmnash: I like the letters and they were dead easy. The blue and white combination was inspired by Lowe's and Walmart. It is very striking...I see why companies use that color scheme.

    @Extraordinarii: Stuffmart is not an actual business, just a made up big box store. I borrowed the name from a kids show, Veggietales, so I can't claim it as original. Keeping the name generic let's me use this for almost any type of store - home improvement, supermarket, Walmart, Kmart, etc.

    Thanks again everyone!

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  8. @Pdoid: Yep, it's a very secret contest every month. Don't tell anyone! ;o)

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  9. Great stuff. Do you have any plans for the interior? I've been contemplating how to fit out interiors of stores & shops - racks, shelves, counters, registers, etc., with appropriate aisles, signage, merchandise, etc., all in various stages of "lootage". Anything to make inside encounters visually more interesting & challenging.

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  10. @pacarat: You're describing a VERY involved project! At this point I have no intentions of doing the interior of a store like this. After all, the interior would cover an entire table! I'll be using this model along a table edge as an objective or to set a mood/location for my games. If I need to game something in the interior I will use the new abstract building rules in I, Zombie.

    I suppose if one wanted to model the interior, one could kitbash some of the World Works Games interior store details. I have the gunshop and there's shelving and registers, etc. in that kit. I assume they have others in their other kits. I have no idea how you could model various states of 'lootage' without modeling all the products in your store. Another idea might be to do digital photos of store shelves and manipulate them to create cardstock mini shelving... Regardless, it would be more fiddling than I want to get into right now. It would be sweet, mind you, but more than I want to tackle!

    For now I'm focusing on painting more minis - zeds and my gangers (EM4 Thugz). I do have ideas for creating a boarded-up version of my actual home in miniature...that'll be coming sometime I'm sure.

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  11. Understand your perspective - wasn't suggesting a 1:1 (at 28mm) modeling of every shelf, rack, can, box, or whatever, just a sprinkling of stuff to keep an interior from looking like an empty box.

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