"Neo-City One - Themed table" Topic

I grew up on healthy diet of 90's cyberpunk imagery. When I got over my initial flush of Nercomunda gothic architecture the first thing I wanted to make was a blade runner, Ghost in the Shell styled board. Over the years I have bought numerous things to try and get my vision to come out. I have never tried to make the image in my head.

So what do I want?

A street at night, the glow of neon lights reflect off the passing crowds on the street and the refuse overflowing in the alleyways. A tall office – old brickwork with modern signs on it painted in layer after layer of graffiti. Hanging Chinese lanterns cross the street the running into a pole positively choked with wires. A store window barred for protection glows with the images of twenty stacked TV's showing the evening new, the image showing riot police clashing with protesters. The light from the tv's washing over the reflective chrome lifters of the cheap sedans parked on the street side. A console glowing pale green in the night surrounded by a couple of youths mounted to the side of the building offered a cheap way to connect to the Net if you have the creds.

To make that I want to make a city at night. the goal is to make the board look dark even viewed in daylight.

The board is a simple cork board with 1/8th wood sheeting for the sidewalks/concrete area. I plan on modeling in the buildings on most of concreted area. There will be a area that I plan on leaving open. for this point I will make a couple of different inserts to make the board not totally static.

I bought a couple of boxes just to try and get a footprint and test a few ideas out.

The circle is where I will put a street light when I get them. The "neon light" is weed eater wire.

Something like this is kind of the direction I want to go.

My buildings will be make out of ho scale parts and plastic styrene.
My questions are how do you get your darkest black possible? How would you make it look like night?
Any tips or suggestions would be great.

DZT

Great concept and I hope you can get it off the ground.

monochrome seems to give the impression of night

TMP link

When I used to build scenery, we used something much like that weed eater plastic, which was optical fiber (fiber optic filament). A very small, and quite cool illuminator will let you spread tiny points of light all over the place, delivered at the ends of the fiber, wherever you route them. It doesn't come out the sides, because that would defeat the purpose.

For neon lights, I have seen quite a few suggestions around TMP about plexiglas and/or styrene, with a stencil and colored lamps.

You might try shining blue, purple, lavender or brown light on or at the board to deepen dark colors and create colored shadows.

Of course it's hard to make light just "go away" without a Jupiter-sized planet (or drawing the shades), but there should be some more suggestions on theatrical/propmaster/magician/illusionist websites to give you more ideas along these lines.

Also, I've seen quite a few future/urban/dystopian threads hereabouts. Some ideas have been kicked around in those threads, as well.

Best of luck with it. I've worked in the entertainment industry for over thirty years, so I'll post up more ideas as they occur to me.

TNE2300 wrote:

monochrome seems to give the impression of night

Indeed it does. Shining complementary colors on things also makes them darker. For instance, the main drape on a stage will often be made of a red fabric. To make it look prettier, "curtain warmers" are usually pointed at it, which are just lights with red gel. To make a red object disappear, shine green light on it.

At the OP: Google, "star drop", "lighting gel", "curtain warmers", "color temperature" and some "noir" plays like City of Angels (the musical).

link

To get the overall effect of moonlight, TV glow, streetlights, neon glow, Chinese lanterns and general darkness, I recommend lots of practicals installed and wired into the structures, and shining lights at the board with dark blue, purple, lavender and/or brown or even gray gel. You might even trying lighter shades of blue, to see if they make the grays pop, while toning down the amber and yellow objects.

Also remember that the buildings should be a slightly complementary color to the "overhead" illumination or they will glow under the colored light. Also remember that dark objects reflect less light, so paint those buildings blacker than black, and go easy on the drybrusing. I'd paint everything two shades darker than you think it needs to be, and try a fluorescent fixture with "blacklight" lamps.

I should also mention that red light tends to tire the eyes, as does darkness, and monochrome light fools your optical system into believing it's nighttime, because (IIRC) there is a smaller spectrum of reflected light, while it would be broad spectrum in daylight. Oh, and don't forget that strongly colored objects which are strongly illuminated can reflect that color onto nearby objects.

One last thing is to remember that both directionality and color temperature of light falling on an object give subtle hints to the brain as to what the source of that light should be. Notice that in your photos, there is still a "white" edge highlight on objects. This needs to be toned down with color. Lavender is lovely for this.

One trick that can aid the effect you want is to make sure that the dark surfaces are as matt as possible. Use a gloss on a few reflective surfaces, for example pipework or street furniture. You then get the benefits of an optical illusion, your eyes are drawn to the bright spots that are reflecting what light there is, your eyes defocus from the others, making them appearing darker.

As a place for more guidance, it might be worth checking out a model railroad/railway forum, as I remember many years ago seeing some good night-time layouts at model shows.

Andrew

A Buzzard HQ wrote:

One trick that can aid the effect you want is to make sure that the dark surfaces are as matt as possible. Use a gloss on a few reflective surfaces, for example pipework or street furniture. You then get the benefits of an optical illusion, your eyes are drawn to the bright spots that are reflecting what light there is, your eyes defocus from the others, making them appearing darker.

As a place for more guidance, it might be worth checking out a model railroad/railway forum, as I remember many years ago seeing some good night-time layouts at model shows.

Andrew

Also an excellent point. Note the reflected light on the face of the "dark" building in the above "mock-up" photo. The shininess belies the illusion of darkness, by reflecting "white" light. The white highlight kills the illusion. One might even consider buying rolls of gel or cellophane, then covering the windows with it, thus coloring the incipient daylight as it enters the room. Most objects are going to want to be ultra-flat, as matte as possible, while a few shiny objects will help the rest recede into the background, IF the highlights are not white, and coming strongly from the side. Most illumination at night outside will be colored, and much of it will be overhead. Also, objects need to be heavily shadowed to appear to be in darkness. Those terrain objects above have no "weight". Directionality of the source, as well as color temperature, will be key.

Had a thought/suggestion for making the board more changeable.

If you have a grid of 3mmx1mm Rounds Magnets recessed into the base board, spacing of around 25-50mm and painted over, then stick some the thin steel labels on to underneaths of building and objects,

Would not this allow you to move the various bits around from game to game & have them still reasonably secure.

Regards

MMG.

A while ago there was a free PDF of some cyberpunk-looking Asian business signs kicking around, does anyone have a link? Those might look cool printed on paper or acetate, and backlit.

Oh, yeah, one thing I forgot to mention before, fake lights cast no shadows.

If there really was a streetlight illuminating a strong down pool at its base in the picture above, there should be a strong shadow at the end of the pile of crates. Probably stronger than the neon wash from across the street. Considerably stronger than the reflected light from the night sky, which should be like infinity blue or twilight purple or sodium-vapor salmon. You can tape or clothespin gel to clip lights, if you're careful about wattage, lamp clearance and heat management.

My considered opinion: Fiber optic filament where possible, a cheap illuminator, several color filters, "practical" fixtures elsewhere, cool overhead illumination, colored window treatments, monochrome palette, mild complementary shift on mostly matte scenery, occasional highlights to draw the eye.

Black light bulbs or "cool" lamps in your fluorescent fixture, Congo Blue and Trudy Blue gel covering about half a dozen 40 or 60 watt clip lights hanging from the ceiling joists on dacron fishing line, Xmas tree "bee" lights in the piece, maybe even weed eater filament as cheap fiber optic filament, illuminated with a xenon flashlight with a colored piece of plastic over the lens, inside a black box somewhere hidden (but ventilated). Sheer blue or purple remnant fabric for the windows. Start cheap. Have fun.