"28mm modern North American houses?" Topic

Just an idle question that has been pestering me the past few days, but are there any companies out there that produce terrain suitable for your average residential neighborhood in a small city/suburb, or does it come down to scratchbuilding and/or using O-scale (or the rarer S-scale) buildings?

I think plasticville do quite a few

Check your local model railroad shop.

They should have a catalog for plastic kits in this scale, if they don't stock it in the store, already.

My guess is, unless the store is unusually large, or is big into the larger scales, that you may have to have them special order the buildings for you.

Most seem to stock HO and N scale buildings more.

O scale buildings is the way to go. The 'Plasticville' line of plastic kits is an economical way to start.

Scratchbuilding is the other way. That's what I had to do for some of my 28mm buildings used in my zombie games. I even have a Walgreens store, a bank, and other local retail shops.

David G.
link

Unfortunately the only local store that I'm aware of that carried railroad supplies closed several years ago. Fortunately there's always the internet.

I'm aware of Bachmann's Plasticville, and several other lines seem to have at least one or two offerings (some of them climbing close to the $200 USD mark). About my only disappoint with them based on pictures is that most seem to be wood, without any vinyl-sided or brick offerings. I've also looked at quarter-scale dollhouses, though most of those seem to lack rears, and 3D puzzles, which seem far to large (one three story house puzzle was listed as 25" high – over twice the size of the highest point on GameCraft's 28mm church).

My main curiosity was if any of the companies offering terrain did any specifically for 28mm, but it seems likely that the answer is no.

David G. – That's a nice setup, and the billboards are a lovely touch. I'm guessing the cars are 1:43?

S is closer than O.
O building's doors and windows all look wonky next to 28mm figs, IMO…

While I would be fine with S-scale, while my Google fu is perhaps weak today, there seems to be a wider variety of O-scale houses available. Admittedly neither scale offers as many options as I can see just by walking a couple blocks.

jb, just cruise EBAY for O scale you can get some pretty cheap, I look for partials and scrap and make my own.

DAVID, do you work for LAMAR Outdoor by any chance? I work for them in the Asheville NC office and have been tempted to use the big mono pole ones complete with cat walk we have for a game as well.

Almost all of mine are Plasticville O gauge buildings. I make signs to go over the "plasticville supermarket" stuff so it looks a bit realistic.

Hey cool! Lamar Outdoor! I used to paint billboards for them back in the 90s when they still did paint. My shop was originally owned by Penn Advertising in PA and then got picked up by Lamar. Fun job, and I love the model billboards.

Keith

Jbenton,

I love my billboards. They ad a certain touch to the game. The signs are all magnetic, so they can be removed from the billboard frame and replaced with other billboard signs. The cars and trucks are all mostly 1:43 scale. Many of the street furniture are O-scale trash cans, fire hydrants, mailbozes, light poles, and telephone poles.

Grossman, nope, I work for my own architectural firm (http://www.GlennDesignInitiative.com), not LAMAR. The billboards are simple to make with photo downloads from the internet and a little photoshop magic to customize them for the town of West Chester in my Zombie games.

David G.
gamerarchitect.blogspot.com