"Want some good Futuristic City and Spaceport Inspiration" Topic

I need to scratchbuild some buildings and terrain, for my 15mm Sci-Fi battles, and am looking for some inspiration to do that.

I'd like to have at least a few, inexpensive skyscrapers to battle over, and around, in addition to some lower city buildings as well.

Ideally, I'd like to see some more futuristic-looking, clean designs for them, so they don't look like those from the current era.

The Dropzone Commander city buildings are superb looking, but a bit too conventional for my needs.

So, I'm challenging you all to assist me with coming up with ideas for cheap, easy to make skyscrapers, and other futuristic structures that are easy to produce out of cardboard, foamboard, styrene, and/or other inexpensive materials.

No doubt, I suspect some of you may probably want, or need this as well, so hopefully this thread will be mutually beneficial to all.

Out of the gate, I'm considering using various sized rectangular boxes for some roughly 1.5 – 2 foot tall, by roughly 1 foot squard skyscrapers. Printing some paper windows for them, and/or adding foamboard around the outside, and then adding details seems like a decent, easy, cheap option. I'll probably add a provision to put some weights in them, so they'll remain in place, if accidentally bumped.

It'd be nice to have some other, interesting shaped options too, instead of just the mundane square and rectangular shaped buildings.

Any ideas for Spaceport structures would be appreciated too, e.g. the terminal building, control tower(s), hangars, landing pads, etc.

Links to images on-line would be appreciated as well, if you know of any good ones. Some that come to mind are the various drawings and CG art for the Traveller RPG.

You have dropbox? I can share my source material folder that is full of that stuff. I grab them from all over.

Edit:I transferred them to google drive so I could share a view only link.

link

The Jetsons?

I've thought these were good inspiration.

link

Wow!

Sniff. No Logan's Run love?

No CG touch-up crap for this era. Man. Where did all that skill go?

I used to do a lot of scratch building, but then I discovered paper modeling and PDF kits. I have a lot of xtras kicking about now from various model makers and have been shading with prisma color markers and pencils on scrap card and adding the spare bits left over from kits.
My spaceport is a frontier shanty town with some new money providing more "modern" or "zorty" structures.
The finger and toe kits have some 15mm options and some of the other makers tip off for the scaling options. Graffham, Genet Models, Stoziel structures….
Finger and Toe gave the most bits from the Eden and Tango Prime kits but also the pipeline and refinery for more stuff. A little bit of dressing from the bit box and flock and they look really good.

I was trying to recall a useful link but then I saw the lovely Jenny Agutter/Jessica 7 and totally forgot was I was going to post.

Ok, scrolled past her enough to remember.

link

Tons of images and links to futuristic image galleries in this thread.

Check out my Bunker Talk blog. I have been gradually making a Martian City based on the Mars Attacks cards. I am using plastic dishes from the Dollar Store. Stack a plate and a glass, then repeat until you have a fairly tall building. The plate works as a balcony and you can put troops on in all the way around. With the plate being upside down, the little rim works as a bit of a railing. I am painting them in metallic colors.

Mike Bunkermeister Creek
bunkermeister.blogspot.com

Here are the only pictures I could find of my Star Wars game I ran at the 2011 Ft. Meigs Game Day(fried hard drive, no backup). All but a couple impressed Middle Eastern style buildings were made from a variety of packaging materials, food and drink containers, cardboard, various bits and pieces plus lots of hot glue and paint. Very inexpensive, quick and easy. The burning ruins were made from foamcore scraps.

The structures were designed to work with 15-20mm figures.
These pics are from over on the Miniature Wargaming site. Many thanks to the photographer who snapped these.

For skyscrapers, I stole the Really Useful Box Company idea from here: link

In the image below, I'd chosen only to stack three buildings of two boxes each. The boxes will stack as high as you like.

I used coloured acetate stuck to the inside walls to make windows and used flock for the eco friendly roof. The hexes on top only serve to make it seem more "sci fi".

The building below is an old CD tower. I ripped out every other "shelf" so that each storey was the right height for 15mm. Again, acetate for the glass with a few desk and pot-plant props visible on the inside.

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This isn't mine. I took the photo from TMP but the person who uploaded wasn't the creator either.

I loved the Jetson style buildings. They are made from plastic dishes, some antenna, and plastic glasses

Sorry, square and mundane:

Thanks, BaldLea; I was afraid I'd have to do a bunch of hunting to find crate examples.

Another thing I noticed was plastic letter trays and magazine holders. I wouldn't buy them new for such, but our local thrift stores have them in abundance, usually a buck or less.

The letter trays (I prefer them inverted) stack for either low ceiling-ed 28mm stories, or tall 15mm. Warning, most have a bit of grade as the letters are supposed to slide to the back.

If you find non-flat trays, try the ones with round grooves; inverted, can be made to look like half-buried pipe, excellent for industrial scenery. Tray end can be belching effluvia.

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Doug

my cheap and easy buildings came from the craft store. they are wooden plinths:
link
or
link

If you can find them there is a series of 'educational toy' construction sets which also make for a cheap city:
link

Sorry for links not photos, its just easier to do.

Try – link

For further inspiration you might check out some of Paolo Soleri's designs

Thank you for all the ideas, and links.

I really appreciate them, and will have to check them out. Lots of good stuff to choose from.