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City Update 3

Hey Everyone,

Here's the latest building for my city layout. It's a custom garage I designed using "The Toolkit Bundle" I purchased ($155) from Evan's Designs. This garage is huge. The foot print is 10" x 10" and the walls are 5" high. Lot's of room inside to add a bunch of accessories. I'm going to design a small office inside and also add a bunch of other details. As noted on a previous post. I'm designing the base buildings first just to fill up my board then I will go back add a lot more detail and weathering at a later time.

I think the program is well worth the price. It allows you to design your buildings in any scale you want and with all the different brick/stone/wood/steel and ton of other options the possabilities are endless. The only downside is that there are no interiors. What I did for the garage build to get the interiors is to print them using the mirror option on my printer. This should give to a reversed image that fits perfectly. If your printer doesn't have the mirror option simply design your build with everything centered or aligned so both sides are the same. Another option is to just print the walls without anything on them (windows, doors, etc.). Then print a sheet of windows, doors and add them where you like. Easy!!

I still have a lot more buildings I want to design and will post them as they spring up.

Here are a few more pictures showing all sides and the interior. As you can see the walls were extremely enticing to taggers since they are nice and tall. Who knows? They may still be around ;) The graffiti was inspired by Vampifan's image. Thanks again Vamp.

If you have any questions please let me know and don't be shy about adding me to your follow list please =).

The Horde Awakens!!

I finally got around to painting a couple zombies. They are from Studio Miniatures.  I don't think they came out to bad considering I haven't painted a mini in over 7 years.  I haven't decided on the bases yet. I might design my own and cast them in resin.

Here's a couple Mantic zombies I'm testing colors on.

I still have a ton of minis to go and will work on a few survivors next. I should also have an update on my city board tomorrow.

Here's a Sheriff and his deputy I just finished..

More to follow...

Review - Paper Buildings

Paper Craft Buildings

I thought I would give my review on paper craft / card buildings.

First we'll start with Stoelzel's Structures. These are my favorites.

 If you are new to paper crafting buildings as I was until very recently, you may be a bit skeptical. You hear card or paper buildings and your first impression is "cheap and flimsy". However this is not the case. The buildings you can design and create are extremely sturdy. The printouts aren't just cut and folded. They are meant to be glued to 5mm foam core giving them increased strength. Once all your wall plates have been glued to foam core you simply hot glue the four walls together to create your building. That's the bare basics of it. There are a few other techniques that add even more strength such as rabbeting some of the wall or floor plates. After you've created a couple buildings it's very easy. You can have blocks of buildings springing up in no time. As an added feature, Stoelzel's buildings are also designed so you can enter and game in the buildings as well. Interior design printouts are included with all the buildings they offer. They buildings are suitable for any 25 - 28mm gaming and are perfect for All Things Zombie, aka ATZ by Two Hour Wargames.

I may produce a video showing step by step instructions on a few of these buildings. If you would be interested in seeing one please let me know. If I get enough followers and requests I will do them.

Next up we have Warm Acre.

Warm Acre offers a few very nice buildings such as "The Club" but they are exterior builds only, meaning they cannot be entered and gamed within. However, there is nothing to stop you from creating your own interiors. You can use interior printouts from Stoelzel's Structures or any other source. They also offer a printout set for "Road Sections" which are suitable for 28mm gaming.

Next is World Works Games.

 These builds are the first paper crafts I seen that got my attention. I was searching for terrain and came across Vampifan's Blog and his awesome use of these builds. He put's so much detail into his buildings and they look fantastic. After looking at Vampifan's city layouts like a kid in a candy store I was hooked and had to have a city of my own. I purchased a few sets starting with "The Armoury" and began my journey into paper crafting. After printing out a few of the walls I noticed that they seemed smaller then what I expected. After studings Vampifan's builds and looking at my printouts I noticed that they were indeed smaller. The walls I printed were 2" high by 6" wide. Vamp's looked taller, so I contacted him and he kindly responded and advised me that his building walls are actually 3" high. He also advised me that his buildings are actually an older version that WWG offered and no longer have. They redesigned the scale for the Terrainlinx system. As much as I love the look of the graphics they are a bit small for my liking. I really wish they would offer all the builds with a 3" wall version. So with that I decided to go with the Stoelzel's Structures. However, WWG buildings do come with a bunch of  props and accessories that are very useful. I would still recommend these builds if you aren't picky about the wall heights as I am.

After doing a bit more research I found many more companys that offer paper builds. Here are the links:

Microtactix

Paper Models International

Dave Graffam Models

These are just a few. I'm sure there are many more out there. If you know of any others please post them.

The last thing I'd like to discuss about paper crafting is the cost. You may think "Hey, this sounds good and I can make tons of building cheap". Yes, but the biggest down side is the printer ink. You will deplete your ink cartridges very very fast on just a few buildings and as you and I know ink carts are not cheap. You can get the refillable carts but then you have to get the needle out to refill each color and make sure you don't over fill them messing up the cartridge and having them they leak all over. All happened to me =(.

So what's the solution? Well, after doing a bit more research this time on refillable ink carts I came across something called a "Continuous Ink System". Sounds great already doesn't it? I won't go into much detail about it but it's like having endless ink. Cost $49.99. The link will go to CICINKS home page where they have a video explaining the system. This solved my running out of ink problem. It's what I was looking for but it's not compatable with all printers like my Lexmark model of course. I decided to buy a new printer that would work with the CIS system. I figured in the long run I'm going to be saving a ton of money on ink carts so why not. After even more research ( yeah I do alot of research I know) I chose a Brother MFC-J835DW and purchased it at BestBuy for $150 minus $25 in rewards coupons I had. I also ordered a few extra bottles of refill ink ($20) along with the system. Now I have enough ink to create tons of buildings without worries about replacing cartridges.

Once you get past the ink costs everything else isn't so bad.

Glue Gun $5 - $20
Glue Sticks - Pack of 25 - $10 or so
Spray glue - $5 a can. One lasts a pretty long time.
Stock paper $15 (Ream of 250 sheets) @ Staples. One ream is enough for alot of buildings
Utility Knife / Box Cutter $1 or 2
Extra Blades $1 or 2
Cutting mat. $5 - $30

This is all more or less a one time buy so once you have everything you can have your own city in no time.

I hope this was helpful to anyone not sure about getting into paper craft builds as I was.

Let me know you thoughts.

City update 2

Here are a few more pics as promised from my last post.

The two building in the pictures above are Stoelzel's Structures. The building with the awning is The Market and a 3 story brick building is from the Modular Urban Center Kit (M.U.C.K.). The Muck kit is great buy for $15. It comes with 6 pre designed building in a couple different styles. It also comes with wall brink blanks so you can add as many windows, doors, signs, etc as you wish. They all have a variety of interiors as well. The sidewalks are also from the Muck kit. Here's a link so you can check out all the info if you like.
Stoelzel's Structures M.U.C.K.

The beige building on the left is a Sarissa apartment building that's under construction. I purchased their mixed bundle deal along with the warehouse and a few extra buildings a couple months ago. I just haven't had the time to work on them. I might borrow Lucky Joe's color schemes. He did a great job on them and that's what made me buy them. Kudo's to you LJ =)

Next item are the streets. I was going to go with the WWG streets but they are a bit small for me. They look great but I wanted streets that are a bit wider so I made my own. I made them using hard board (the stuff that's in most picture frames behind the picture) and a white marker for the lines. The straights are 6" x 6" and the intersection is 8" x 8" with the corners curved out so the sidewalks corners would fit flush. I also made a few 12" x 6" sections. I will make some curves and other street sections later.

The building above is from Warm Acre called "The Club". Cost was $3.95. Warm Acre offers a few nice buildings but the are exterior builds - no insides. I'm going to do a kit bash later and add an interior once I get a nice set of buildings for my layout done. The corner where it sits is not complete. I just placed it there to fill the corner for the pictures. It will have it's own 2' x 2' section with a fence around it and parking. The name will also be changed to the "Badda Bing". Reaper has a great zombie strippers 3 pack that are going to be perfect for it. They also have urban zombies 3 pack that has a cop, a john and a hooker. You can check them out on my webstore item numbers 50213 and 50038. All the vehicles pictured are also available along with a bunch of others.

Here are a few more pictures of the build.

These are the next two buildings that I'm working on. I should have them done soon.

After these I'll get started on the Sarissa buildings. I really need to get some minis painted too.

I have over 200 zombies that need painting. Will the fun ever end =P

I hope you enjoyed the update. Tell your friends. More to follow.

City underway!!

First couple buildings done. I made a few street sections and sidewalks as well.

More pics to follow.

It begins!!

I'm new to the ATZ game but a long time wargamer and terrain builder. I'll be posting all the latest builds for my ATZ board which I am now obsessed with and updates on my websites new releases as well as other rambling. I look forward to hearing from all my fellow gamers out there. Thanks, Vince