Urban setting for the Tartarus Rim: Landing on Proserpine

[symphonicpoet]

About a year and a half ago my wife bought me a bunch of TT Combat MDF scenery for my birthday. I'm making slow, but steady progress through them. They're all a part of the "Sci-Fi Gothic" line, and most are the "Stack City" kits. My theory is that they can serves as an area near the primary spaceport on Proserpine simply called "Landing."





I added dollhouse hinges to the doors to make them practical.



This is going to be a pizza shop for a particular hunchbacked fellow from Curtis Fell. One experiment is staining the floor with ink and varnishing it with a gloss acrylic. The ink raised the grain of the MDF quite a lot, so it took tons and tons of gloss to coat it. I ended up using a gloss lacquer I had in a rattle can, as the acrylic simply wasn't cutting it.



Like the sushi/noodle shop across the market I decided to try gluing a printout of some public domain art for a wall decoration. Every restaurant has a mural, right?

 

[twisted moon]

i'm pleased to see this expanding.

 

[symphonicpoet]

A little more progress . . .

I should weather it and add some more details, but I think it's getting pretty close now.




And just because all the doors work . . .


Here's what it might look like to an extent in context . . .


Though there will be many more buildings yet, and some walkways to add additional levels. But with some set dressing I think it will work out all right.





(He really does need a better place for that keg, though. The top of an oven is probably not ideal.)

Oh, and as a final extra bonus: There's space to land a small craft on the roof of the tower block.

 

[twisted moon]

looking forward to the 'battle' reports.

 

[symphonicpoet]

^It may be a few months, but it will come soon.

 

[symphonicpoet]

Time to add some graffiti. This is only the start. I plan to add more on several levels and in multiple styles. These examples are taken from an empty building near the center city in my home town.





The next step will be posters. And more graffiti, of course, but posters. I'm planning to make several, but here's one that might elicit a chuckle: I've always loved Cheetor's Mushrööm Klöwd project. (Even wrote a little ditty for them some years back that referred to a BOYL game.) Well, I would love to see them on tour, so . . . It's the Rim Tour 26!



The picture of Stephen Tylork is shamelessly stolen from Cheetor. The stops are locations from some of my favorite Oldhammer blogs. It's all a bit silly, but man, Tylork is glorious, so I'm doing it. It's going to be the size of a fingernail, mind you. Smaller. But still 'splodey.

 

[ManicMan]

Good to see in your part of the country, some people have good taste in music ^_^ or would have if they spelt it Suzi Q... I have heard of the band 'Suzy Q' but I can't say I've heard of any of there work.

 

[symphonicpoet]

I'm not 100% positive what he's referring to, but I'd guess it's more likely to be the 1957 single than the 1980s Canadian act or Susan Quatro. That said, yes, there's good music to be had here. We're home to Miles Davis and Chuck Berry. Tina Turner got her start here with a local guitarist of some disrepute named Ike at a place called the Imperial Club. (Very much endangered, sadly.) Scott Joplin spent much of his career here. (And his house is a museum now.) Mel Bay, Leonard Slatkin, Grace Bumbry, Johnnie Johnson, Clark Terry, Nelly . . . the list of great musicians who were born here or spent the formative parts of their careers here is a bit ridiculous. Quite a few left and landed in sexier places, but make no mistake, St. Louis is one of the world's great musical towns. If you ever find yourself here I'd be more than thrilled to take you out to catch a show or two. Maybe hit the club where Chuck Berry played until the day he died. (Take earplugs if you plan to catch a show, mind. It's . . . loud. But even just walking down the halls is an experience.)

 

[ManicMan]

Ah, the song 'Susie Q'.. makes sense people have a hard time spelling ^_^ Dale Hawkins wrote and sung the original I believe.

 

[symphonicpoet]

^And CCR did a cover that was locally quite popular when I suspect the artist in question was growing up. (I think I might even know who it was. He ended up in the local paper when he got arrested in the middle of a tag. Dad owned a construction company. He's a bit younger than me, but not enough that he wouldn't remember the 80s.)

 

[symphonicpoet]

For the posters I'm just printing them out and gluing them to the building. I'm planning to add some blank blue tape posters and maybe a bit more graffiti and then weather it and then add more posters, probably more blue tape, removing some of what was there, and weather it again, before adding even more posters and more graffiti. My hope is to create a layered effect with different degrees of weathering. The blue tape will leave "ghost" images by creating rectangles of less weathered or even unweathered space. (And holes in the graffiti.) The irregular grey rectangles are to suggest places where older, more offensive, or more accessible tags have been covered over. The posters are a mix of concert posters I've knocked together for real concerts, Oldhammer badges (because why not?), and assorted sci-fi references. Trying to work out a good mix. I might also see if I can find or create some in assorted East and Southeast Asian languages . . . because reasons. Should add some East Asian graffiti, too.

 

[Orjetax]

This is a great looking endeavor


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[symphonicpoet]

^Thank you Orjetax! I'm having more fun painting graffiti than I ever expected. I didn't realize pink and blue would look quite so good on a skull.

 

[twisted moon]

i'm putting off the graffiti on my buildings; perhaps i just need to grasp the nettle.

 

[symphonicpoet]

^I was a little hesitant about it myself, to tell you the truth. And I won't pretend that every effort is equally good or makes me equally happy all the time, but . . . it really does add something and in net I'm pretty happy with it.