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Discussion Starter · #1 ·
well, here we go again...this time a lot more tentative than the mexican track which sort of designed itself...this one is probably going to be a lot more tricky.

the first plastic track has now been ripped up and the decent bits of rockery will be donated to the local kids for army battle games and the like. the base is now as god intended, complete with the holes cut where the plant pots and water pools sat (it was an art installation of a friend of mine)


you can see its kind of 3 circles joined up in plan...this will give us the clue of how the track will work, the middle area is to be the high ground (towers etc) dividing the 2 exterior circles and the plan is to model the larger end in 1:32 and the smaller end in 1:43. the middle towers i´ll try and work in scales up to 1:72 with some smaller train and the like (obviously simple circular circuits or something)



something that i think it would be impolite not to use is the depth of the base. you can see from the close ups that the depth is about 50 cm, and the big lakes could easily be used as old quarry´s or sunken cities or something odd, and as they are in the 1:43 end its easier to make something big from them.my first though would be an inverse spiral like rally p´s mount, (but an inny not an outy!)

what else is important?

well for ages i´ve loved the uunpainted plaster that people have been doing molding and then painting, and also for years (and with my furniture ) i´ve been interested in the use of different textures within only one colour. there are many types of black and even more types of white, the different textures should be able to give it all the depth that is needed without the need for paint effects!! I HOPE!
the tricky thing will be trying to get wear and tear effects using only white....maybe thats were light grey comes in?

this will hopefully give the finished product, a quite sculptural feel which is something i´ll want to look at for the next few years (asking a lot!)

in theory this will be done with some collaboration with my pain in the arse 7 year old who thinks everything is boring at the moment, i´m trying to inspire him as he loves all things rocket powered and futuristic...also its a good way to get him to lend me his model space 1999 eagle, and all his broken toys for kit bashing.


it´ll probably take nearly forever..i need to be calmer with this one than with the last 2 as it was taking over my life too much...as you can see it´ll be really tricky and i´ll need everyones help with all the unknowns. and moral support...thanks in advance

sig

ps the track is likely to be a one laner again for space reasons, the 1:43 part should be capable of taking the 1:32 cars (like mexico). cars themes between futuristic one offs, existing 1:32 sci fi models (kit bashed ) and i ghuess a couple of classic wrecks like death race and mad max

opinions more than welcome
 

· One petunia in a field of onions
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Some say he was Douglas Adams' inspiration for Slartibardfast and that he once worked for the Magorathea construction company.
All we know is he's call Sig.

If anyone can pull it off it's Sig!
 

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yes this will be entertaining !!!

i love that base - like some free form from the '60s or '70s

i keep seeing it as a loose play on an asteroid in space with a moonscape track on it -

why, i don't know but i wish i had a base like that to have fun with


good show - thanks for posting and look forward to seeing what will come

great incentive for me to move forward with some of the sci fi entourage i have been collecting in 1/32
has just given me a slew of new ideas too

the possibilities really are 'open' aren't they - so a great concept and theme

regards, , Ron
 

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Fantastic, it's gunna be great fun.

I've been thinking about the towers and modelling them in 1:72 at the top, should look good. I have a large vertical roof support that I want to hide, might be a goer.

Have you thought much about the mood or setting yet?

Some that I have been thinking about:

1. Military dominated, everyone looking the same, muted colours, dystopian
2. Mad Max crazy vehicles and costumes, wild, uncontrolled
3. Utopian purity, white everywhere, calm people, beauty, style
4. Busy, busy, busy, market places, multiple levels, lots of diversity, lots of colour
5. Moon base, craters, domes, construction vehicles, industry
6. Future retro, 400 years in the future, modern surrounds, with a 20th century racetrack, a living museum
7. Technology expo, lots of amazing stuff going on, hover cars, floating buildings, space elevator
8. Alien domination/subjugation/cooperation, weird plants

So many options!!! I'm drawn to option 1 and 4 at the moment.

Good luck sig, you told us not to hold our breath in the other thread, then BAM, here you are! I know what you mean about these builds taking over your life though, need to keep a good balance.
 

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Discussion Starter · #7 ·
thanks folks for the support, i have to say i´m a little nervous..out on a limb here!

bob thanks i´ll no doubt need your advice later on
mr zook, thanks i´ve just discovered what a dobro is..and your right!
ember,
i prefer the top gear insinuation to being called 'sig of the dump' when at school!! lets see if i can pull it off??

ron , thats kind of the idea, the base is great, and took loads of time to build ( i was there) so we need to do it justice, i see it as a man made island, but yes the floating meteor is cool inspiration too. wouldnt mind a few pics of the sci fi kit bashable stuff thats available cheers

davoq. here we are again ..great list, thats about everything covered, my gut is going with the utopian purity but with military undercurrents in the central tower city, and then in the out skirts chaos and rebellion in the workers ghettos(1:43) and maybe the industrial chemical plants and rocket bases over on the other side in 1:32...remember all in tones of white!!

keep em coming sig
 

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sig, I don't know how much space you have, or how big the base you are using is, it looks like it is in sections, so I thought maybe you could consider adding a piece in the middle to make it bigger?

If you want to preserve your friends art piece, them obviously my suggestion is not relevant.

Just a thought, I did a quick photoshop:



Having said that, the base already looks fantastic and screams out for sci-fi, you're onto a winner.

I feel that lighting will be a key success factor, both internal and external.
 

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"I feel that lighting will be a key success factor, both internal and external."
yes, lots of blue and red LED's.......

Sig,are you thinking about sculpting some futuristic cars,on 4x4 chassis perhaps?(as if the construction of the track isn't enough)
 

· Tel
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Looking forward to seeing your imagination let loose on this one Sig
 

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right, i´m on this now for sure...been looking for concept pics and images on google. had a brainwave

you know all those holes, well obviously (in my brain anyway) what any future scape needs in a hole is a couple of these....




nice and easy to model and a good place to start with the track...but the other side of the city? what happened to make the big holes?, a misslile silo destroyed by the rebels? a meteor strike?, or a remnant of world war 4?

this is a real pic from guatamala...reallity is stranger than fiction...a 3 story block of flats fell into this hole...it is not photoshopped


guys yes lighting is gonna be the way to add life to the monochrome. davoq , cant extend the base, its massive anyway and re doing the fibreglass would be months i´ll take the dimensions soon

mr zook. yep the vehicles will be scratches (ish ) too, i can´t really see a seat leon riding around this one, maybe some old wrecked classics for the rebels though

these caught my eye ..not as drivables but as scenery perhaps



might start on the silos, soonish, give me some concept ideas about the other craters..its 1:43 that side, can´t decide whether the rebels are trying to blow up the city (but missed) or acidental silo explosion, or past meteor hit??


and what about the stuff driving into the craters?? feasible??

all this stuff will help define the city scape, not sure as yet if its gleaming new build or partly destressed/destroyed
....come to think of it a story line would help

maybe jordi hernandez juniors grandchildren have to be brought in to help
...maybe this is mexico 2066 after something...err.....BIG happened (but what?)


ideas please folks

cheers to all sig
 

· Robb
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QUOTE (sig @ 26 Sep 2010, 20:27) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>this is a real pic from guatamala...reallity is stranger than fiction...a 3 story block of flats fell into this hole...it is not photoshopped

Off topic, but I'm curious about this pic - the hole looks very man made - some sort of mining accident?
QUOTE (sig @ 26 Sep 2010, 20:27) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>these caught my eye ..not as drivables but as scenery perhaps

THAT is awesome!
Is it scratch built?
 

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robb ..mad isnt it... heres the clip
news reel

guatamala sink hole
they say its a sink hole opened up by the storm agatha...it could have been creating itself over years, its 32 metres deep and 20 wide, they suppose theres a cave undreneath...a similar thing happened 3 km away in 2007 causing 2 deaths and swallowing various houses!!
 

· One petunia in a field of onions
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This is going to be one helluva journey.

My two bits worth....

The two biggest holes need to be something built underneath, to look into, again making use of the forced perspective for added depth. Perhaps even something that breaks out of your 'shades of white' theme.

The large round one, not sure why, but I keep seeing it as accommodation of sorts. Prison? Mine workers? The displaced? Slaves? But stacked, 'reverse tower' accommodation going into the bowels of the earth. Something in real dark earth colours. I could probably draw it easier than I can explain it. Maybe looking down into another 'society'. Mutants? Colours could start white and get grubbier as things get deeper/smaller. Strangely Gattacca keeps coming to mind. A place for the 'unauthorised'.

The other big one I keep seeing as water or volcanic for some reason. Volcanic could make sense as the power production of the 'city'. Archeological dig maybe? But again it needs to be something to draw the eye down into the track to me and play up the 'white perfection' of the city above it. Maybe a mine, with the red glow of magma at the bottom.

Apologies, the above started off being structured but finished up just riffing. Its early, I need more coffee.

Embs
 

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Discussion Starter · #16 ·
mr zook, the yucatan is full of sink holes...more reason for this to be mexico in the future (i like a bit of continuity!)

ember i like it and know exactly what you mean, the false perspective abyss , maybe the hatchery or clone production, the other one ..due to its proximity should be something similar, but i really want some rebel activity, as the shape is more distorted, maybe this abyss has suffered a rebel attack and is blackened and smokey (here we go with the smoke machine),,,the bottom of the abyss could be tapped into a lava flow for energy, no problem with that and cue the red leds!!...i love it when a plan comes together!!


the abyss needs an endless perspective so should be a (relatively) straight forward way of practicing the false perspective...like the idea of adding another colour palet to the underworld...good thinking batman

sig
 

· One petunia in a field of onions
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The beauty of forced perspective going downwards is the pit can become quite deep in a short space with harder 'forcing'. Enter 'N', 'HO' and 'Z' scale train gear.


Rebel activity in the mis-shapen abyss works for me. Full scale destruction on one side. Blacks, earths, smokes. Sheared cables, bared wires, twisted and blackened girders. Areas of tumbled base rock, with glimpses of red volcanic glow through fissures in the rock. The other side harsh, cold blues. Fake, plastic surfaces but slightly grubby and a little twisted (as in not quite right) to the eye. Not like the pristine, shiny type surfaces above. And again that glow of anger and destructive red from the bottom of the abyss.

Dang, I can picture all this in my head. Its frustrating how easy it is to get caught up in enthusiasm about someone elses build. And not be able to drum up similar enthusiasm for your own anymore. Argh!

Embs
 

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The big pit at the 'front' is perfect for one of those "deep" tunnels as per the first Star wars film as were those for the Forbidden Planet.. In those the model pits were made with mirrors at the bottom to make the thing look far deeper.. Was far more fun before computers hey?





I reckon for styling and profiling you should go for a 1950's 'big budget' look.. and for cars you need to scratch some of the 1950's concept cars . I saw a grouse site recently with that sort of thing. I'll google it up.

I'm pretty sure they do a 32nd scale Battlestar Galactica fighter thingy.. this is my fave model shop for Sci Fi stuff Hobby Link Japan

Pop "1950s concept cars" into google - there's some great images like this

http://t2.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcR...PfPIOf9vyh26Lk=
 

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Discussion Starter · #20 ·
wow great stuff folks, this things solidifying quicker than polyurethane paint!

ember. great images, i couldn´t have put it better myself...interesting how you think in colour!..i´d noticed that about you before, i guess for the forced perspective abyss i create an inverted truncated cone getting darker to the bottom, i need to look around for cheap plastic objects (egg shaped that can be got in various sizes for all the bolt on stuff..i thgink a good trick would be actually r4epeating a detail, bridge , landing pad, wired up egg etc and actually repeating it a few times at the different scales, i reckon in the abyss i can get down to 1:144 in 50 cm


eno dog , thanks for that cool ideas and great shop . the battlestar gallactica thing has been pencilled in for the foreground at the silo end of the track, i´d really like a 1:48 x wing too, but i´m aware that it could start looking like some kind of classic spacecraft museum!...then theres the millenium falcon and the at ats???, also in the japan shop theres loads of reduced tanks and stuffin 1:35 which when painted light grey and with different detailing look very futuristic...(the model tank that came with the space 1999 eaghle is essentially a kit bash of a standard 1:72 tank of some form)

i particularly liked this car on the concept car pics

as it happens theres a cheap diecast 1:32 in the local chinese shop which is not too disimilar!
, as my ideal job would be car design it will be good fun spicing up some existing stuff

davoq that guy is the guvnor!

the second pic is bang on what i had in mind for the 1:32 silo area and the 3rd pic is an easy way of doing the city centre. better start saving our plastic bottles and tops etc....domes , domes and more domes

found this on the same site which i thought was interesting for the 1:43 ghetto area


in the mean time trying to day dream the reason behind all this and the blood line between present day mexico and future whereever...got some ideas ...remember as we leave the mexican airfield jordi junior and the daughter of the police chief are pregnant.....i have a feeling the little sprog could be important in futurelandia!!


cheers sig
 
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