I’ve looked through archive pics and have seen some good ideas, but if anyone here has “special/unique” foundations built for their Bachmann City Scapes buildings or have used land form or “concrete” stepped/terraced risers in their cities, It would be great to see close ups for ideas.
I’m planning my city area (about 2X6’) at the end of my aisle while I finish up the last mountain range castings and painting.
I’d like to terrace things a bit, maybe 1/2" hugher for ea. row of buildings, etc. and could use some inspiration. The Bachmann skyscrapers and shorter buildings like the Dpt. Store dometimes look “worng” just sitting flat on the pavement even with some landscaping.
Anything you might have that would be easily postable would be appreciated or a link to a thread I may have missed in my search. (I seem to be getting only a few search hits with the new software and they’re not always related to what I’ve typed in…
Our N scale club layout group is building a town on a rise up to a mountain. The back is about four to six inches higher than the front. We are using blue foam squares larger than the buildings foot print and stacking them as necessary to get the ‘proper’ height and steps up. Once glued down we are going to draw the foot print on the top and shape the remaing foam to the contour desired between levels.
Don’t know if you’ve considered www.shorpy.com but it’s a great resource for old photos. Some of the stuff shot on large format glass plate negatives from the late 19th and early 20th century are unreal in detail. There’s a wealth of detail when you view the shot “full size” You could search for cities, buildings, etc. on their site. Seeing how it was done in stone and steel would probably kick start the creative process
For my city buildings, I use styrene sheet to create sidewalks that go around the base of the building. In this picture, you can see the first layer of styrene in white, which is level with the roads in dark gray. The sidewalks sit on top of the first layer, and are cut out to fit the footprint of the buildings.
This is the structure that sits in the upper left corner of the first photo. With the actual base of the building below the sidewalk, that awkward “just sitting there” look is avoided, and you don’t get light leaking out from under the walls if you illuminate the buildings.
I have been using Smooth-It to make my city blocks. It comes out good, but you know all the work you have to put in to that. Using these strips seems so much easier. Thank you. You made my life a little easier. I take it you can carve the squares if necessary?
The squares are drawn on with a #2 pencil, using a ruler to keep them straight. These sidewalks were brush-painted with acrylic craft paint, but more recently I’ve been using rattle-can gray primer. I find the primer is much more durable.
Urban streets give you a lot of opportunity to add details, and details catch the eye and draw the viewer’s attention away from minor flaws like building foundations.
Here, I’ve got streetlights, traffic lights, a fire hydrant, mailbox and several figures, which make this small scene look very busy. The HOTEL sign is an old one from Miller Engineering. It sequences through the letters, and provides “animation” although nothing actually moves.
The streets are done with Smooth-it. I think they look as good as the foam but the effort is 10 times more. To add even more realism lighting the signs!
Ah, thanks guys! Really good suggestions here. Mr. Beasley, I like your idea on top of some kind of rise. It IS exactly the “just sitting there” look that I seek to avoid.
Could use ideas for setting buildings at different heights/levels. I’m considering and would like to see raised platforms for buildings to sit on that are at slightly different heights, even if they’re in the same row (street).
I’ll be mocking ideas up as soon as I’m done with a few more weeks of mountain range castings and painting. Maybe a street switchback or two…
Thanks!
Jim
PS I have looked at/on Shorpy and had forgotten about them. I’ll go look again and fully understand the “caveat” to be careful not to get entrapped by fascination
This isn’t my layout, but it is an idea to think about:
This is a scene from the City Classics show layout that you may have seen at some of the larger train shows. He terraced the buildings on steps going up from left to right, so that the sidewalks in front of each building are level, but each building is a bit higher than its neighbor. Then, he hid the edges with the stone wall and sloping road.
This one is from my own layout:
I don’t have big elevation changes, but I found that I needed a bit of height to get up to the platform level behind these buildings. I built a wide set of steps from styrene and added railings made from floral wire. Again, the sidewalks are styrene sheet with lines scribed with a pencil. To the left is the station, bashed from the old Walthers “YMCA” kit by cutting an inch or so off the back. To the right is one of the City Classics buildings from the top photo. With big windows, it just begs for an interior. The streetlight is intentionally placed to illuminate the plaza and stairs. Finally, Woodland Scenics makes a set of figures called “Taking the Stairs” which enhance this kind of elevation change.
I did something like MisterBeasley did, only I used 1/8" masonite glued to styrofoam board, as I needed a sturdy structure I could pick up and expose the tracks underneath. The streets are made from 20 minute drywall mud, painted and stained.
The buildings just sit on the base, so they can be removed.
Thanks Mike. Mr. B., the sloped street and stepped buildings pic/idea is very helpful, thanks! That’s along the lines of what I’d like to do. Things that will give a narrow 2’ wide city some depth and height variations. I’m trying not to use shallow or backdrip buildings much-mostly full buildings like the Metropolitan Bldg. and the Trade Tower, etc. with smaller (earlier) small town buildings (Merchants Row(s), etc.) below them.
Any other ideas out there? Thanks guys, great pics and techniques.
Stepping the footprint of your buildings requires a bit of trial for the actual type and size buildings used. The viewpoint to the scene also determines just how you can disguise the elevation changes as not to have retaining walls and steep roadways that will deter from the believability of the “real” scene. One club member spent months placing pieces of plywood and/ or slabs of foam to design this small city scene. It can be viewed from various angles and this created the troubles to hide the stepping and aid in the illusion of the rising buildings. The desicion to first raise the city w/ the long retaining wall helped to “lift” the entire scene. Only 2 streets run up the grade and it needed to look believable, not to have too many exposed foundations or walls. The other streets are hidden between buildings and some need not always connect as they are out of view. If you have a limited view the raised placement becomes much easier to disguise.
Backdrop distant buildings either painted, relief or modified sectioned panels will help in gaining considerable depth to a much larger metropolis. Hope some of these pics help. Wish I had the planning pics of the foundation placement.
Sounds like Mr. B & others have helped a lot as to methods. My 13x14 will be all city, half downtown office bldgs abutting an industrial area with 20 sidings. If you still need inspiration, I make great use of Google Street View and just “drive” around a city I’m familiar with. When I find something useful, I click CTRL + Prt Scrn. It won’t print it but it will copy it, then paste it into a Word doc, 2 to a page. Saves leafing thru hundreds of online photos trying to find something relevant. Also a great source of street detail ideas with a close up view of the real thing.
Just dropping back in to thank you guys again. Bog40, I’m just now starting to play around with some “terracing” and your club pics were really helpful. Any chance a straight down “birdseye” view exists?
Mr. Beasley, I’m definitely going to use your styrene “foundation”/surround method. That was a GREAT idea.
I may still have to stay with a flat city (bluff top) due to limited space but I’m having fun experimenting while I finish up the mountain range’s ground cover. I only have room for two rows of buildings in my 2’ depth. The skyscrapers (well 8-9 story anyway) will be in the rear with merchants row and city classics in front. The American Hardware building (Walthers) and possibly the Red Wing Mill bldg. will be the industries. (Lots elsewere on the layout). I want to use complete sructures rather than kit bashed or background kits less than 4" deep so two rows is what’s available for space.
Can’t wait to start building more structures. I’ve been making Mountains for a l-o-n-g time now.
I’ll contribute a picture of that same scene from Bob’s South Shore Model RR Club’s layout They are gracious enough to hold an open house a few times a year, and I’ve visited a couple of times:
When I bring visitors up to the trainroom, they are confronted with the whole thing at once, as they have to climb a few stairs to get there. They are usually impressed, but it’s when I turn down the room lights that I get the real oohs and ahs.
City streets come alive at night with lights. One trick I learned here was to block off parts of the building interiors so that some rooms were lit while others were not. This also makes it easier to put the lights in the ceilings, rather than poking up through the floor, so you can’t see the bare bulbs when looking in through the windows. As you can see, the back walls of these buildings face the wall of my trainroom. I put a piece of plain white paper over the back windows, so you can still see some light there if you peek around the back, but the lights won’t cast distracting shadows on the back wall.
I cut the back edge of the side walls of each of these buildings back by about an inch. They were much deeper, but that didn’t fit the space. The tall ones are from City Classics, while I adapted a Walthers YMCA into my downtown station.
Thanks Mr. B.! I’d love to see that layout sometime but I’m on the wrong coast. My Father was from Mass. and I spent a lot of my chldhood in Gloucester (grew up in N.J.). Looking forward to trying out all these ideas. Too bad the two rows only “law of physics” limits getting TOO creative here…
