4 Buildings for Gotham

[eboladude]

Hi all. My first foray into the marvelous world of 3D HC buildings is a small collection of structures for a Gotham City scenario.

http://noplab.com/GothamCity0.jpg

The buildings consist of the Monarch Theater from the first Batman flick, First National Bank of Gotham, Wayne Tech Tower, and Gotham Cathedral, a variant of the one from the first flick. They're foamboard overlaid with laser-printed stickers (full sheet-sized). Some buildings like the bank and church have laser transparencies in place for picture or stained glass windows.
For more pics, check out:

National OverPower Lab (http://noplab.com/heroclix1.htm)

[azbats]

Nice!

[Jack Squat]

Wow, that's what I call attention to detail. From the picture in your post, it looks like the buildings aren't all the same scale, but maybe that's just a trick of the camera. They look great.

[Wyldstaar]

They're nice buildings, but they're not Gotham buildings. Gotham has very gothic style architecture. Intricately layered wall designs, gargoyles and grotesques- that's Gotham.

[DareDevil9]

Those are so COOL!!! i wish i had the time and talent to do that. That looks realy great!;) I wish i had some!!:cry:

[eboladude]

Hi guys,

I appreciate the critiques! The scale is FAR from perfect, if only because I can't REALLY do 6ft. tall skys####ers - the skys####er is 30 inches as it is! The Wayne Tech tower has 5 floors, plus a functional roof helipad. The bottom floor is an expanded lobby that will sport a chandelier. There will also be a virtual elevator on each floor.
The Cathedral (not yet finished) has a main floor, two balconies, and will have two towers that will be cojoined. Underneath the edges of the two tower crossovers WILL be gargoyles.
Additionally, I'm going to run some small black threads between some rooftops (especially the cathedral towers!). These will represent swing/web lines that will allow those characters who swing to move between buildings.

[Jack Squat]

Any idea how many hours you've spent on these so far?

[seton55]

what are those made of? I TRIED to make one today but it turned out like ####. I was wondering how much time and money you spent on those. Also dont you think those are a little TO BIG:ermm: .

[eboladude]

The hours aren't that bad - most of the artwork was done AT WORK (!) while waiting for some processes to finish in the lab. Most of the individual detailing comes from modelling bits that can be found. Overall - maybe about 20 hours so far.
They're just made of foamboard with labels stuck on top. I was surprised how stury they are.
Are they BIG? Oh yeah. However, my wife noticed how good I'm getting at building houses, so she's making me finish our basement. She doesn't know it yet, but half my basement is supposed to become a playroom. Guess what we're playing! We've got a GOOD local group that plays at a local shop, but we also play at homes. After 1-2 trips out to the shop, I'm going to set all this up at home and just invite people in. And then I'm going to build a playtable for 3'x3' maps.

[BatMite]

I LOVE the bank vault!!! Interested in selling people one time use of these graphics? I'd love to make my own bank vault with your graphics for my heroClix players. How much would you charge for a CD of your graphic files? I can do the rest myself. Please email me at brianschomburg@hotmail.com

thanks
Great work!

[SciFiGuy]

Very, very nice!

I did a couple too (out of cardboard and ink-jet printed paper - and I cut up blister packaging for windows - a lot cheaper), but I like your's better.

The issue of scale is always - uh - an issue. The trick is to balance realism, playability and budget. A balance that you seemed to have struck very well...

Keep it up!

[006]

got pics of the mayan pyramids

[TalonMC]

Excellent job on those! The insides look awesome with the texture printings. Very cool! Some time ago, I had bought a variety of patterned papers to use inside my X-mansion but I have yet to utilize them. Again, great job!

-MC

[TheEnigma]

Here's a cool site with some comlpetely free Warhammer-fantasy style building templates. They can easily be converted into more modern versions with Photoshop.

http://www.geocities.com/artidomal/Warhammer_Buildings.html

And this site has some way cool printable two-sided character tokens, like the kind that come with most board games. They're in a variety of genres, printed on one 8-1/2" x 11" paper that folds in half:

http://users.skynet.be/gwindel/index.html

Hope this helps!

[TheEnigma]

Hey, just checked out your site and it's very impressive! The scenario sounds interesting and I can't wait to see how it turns out.

I only have one small suggestion: it kinda sucked having to wait for the scenario info to load; instead of JPGs you should resave them as GIFs or 8-bit RLE bitmaps so they'll load way faster.

The buildings are fantastic and I love the interior details! The seating at the theater was particularly cool. You should scour the web for a cool image from the first flick and paste it on the screen! :)

Keep up the great work!!

[CCTelander]

Just a quick question for anyone who might know. Is the foamboard you guys use for your 3-D buildings available in different thicknesses? From the pics I've seen, some of it looks to be about 1/4" thick, but in other cases it appears thicker, more like 3/8". Thanks!

[Wyldstaar]

Foamcore is almost always 1/4" wide, but it can be found smaller and larger than that. The 3/8" sized ones are usually not any cheaper than the 1/4, and the 1/2" ones are slightly more expensive, very hard to find, and fairly useless for use in constructing HC buildings.

[CCTelander]

Originally posted by Wyldstaar
Foamcore is almost always 1/4" wide, but it can be found smaller and larger than that. The 3/8" sized ones are usually not any cheaper than the 1/4, and the 1/2" ones are slightly more expensive, very hard to find, and fairly useless for use in constructing HC buildings.

Thanks!

[Kid Zero]

Cool. Looks like a lot of fun.

[bizarrome]

I have a few questions about the scenerio. The Kane Madness goal reads:

Find the Kane Topaz by finding cluses to it's whereabouts. The winner will be the first person to acquire the gem and get it out of Gotham. If no one finds the gem in the alloted time, the winner will be determined as the person who has eliminated the most opponent's figures (by summed point value) plus acquisition of clues (by summed point value) plus acquisition of power artifacts.

What are the clues? Are they just tokens to be gathered or are they particular items? How are they placed? Are they placed so many per player? If so how many are there supposed to be? And how many do you have to possess to then go after the Kane Topaz?

What are the power artifacts? What powers do they have? Are they like the Infinity Gems scenerio that allows the possessor to use the color that matches the power and abilities colors to use that power? Or are they weapons of some sort?

How is the Kane Topaz hidden? is this an agreed upon place? A predetermined place? or does a particular person get to place it, like a high roller on th dice?

I think the buildings are great and the Scenerio sounds so cool. But I just want to understnad a few more of the mechanics of it.

[eboladude]

What are the clues? How is the Kane Topaz hidden?

The clues are numbered manila folder tokens that are hidden in various sites around the city, i.e., in the vault behind the picture of Bruce Wayne's parents in his office, in his desk, in certain security deposit boxes inside the vault. The person running the scenario (yes, this DOES require an agreed upon dungeonmaster to place clues, tokens, etc.) would give the character that particular clue. For example, one clue would identify the security deposit box number in the bank that would need to be opened. Another would have the key to the box (but not the box number). A different clue would say that "#16. Mayor Kane's medical degree is from Yale" (the location of his personal wallvault. One note - if a clue is grabbed by someone else, there might be extra information available, i.e., after being grabbed you'd get #16 & #16a. "9L-6R-2L-14R" (the vault combo - so you wouldn't have to smash open the vault). I'm up to 35 clues and locations for these.
The dungeonmaster, for want of a better name, gets to place tokens for clues and artifacts, and may well have other specific duties that WILL surprise every player. For example, in one version of the scenario, the one Batman team or anti-Batman team member from each player's squad is to be removed from the team prior to the start of the game and secretly place in a location on the board. The player must find that character before being able to read any clues they've discovered. Like I said earlier, SOME games will last more than one session. When this happens we record what's happened, where people are, etc. and simply continue on when we reconvene.
I have my own feelings about where to hide the Kane Topaz. It's the big prize, and there are several ways to play it. My favorite way will NOT be revealed here, because the secret would blow everyone away, and involves aspects of the Marvel Universe, DC Universe, fighting a titan and scaring the bejeesus out of every player on the board, especially the person who finds the Kane Topaz. If you want a detailed description of THAT scenario, email me. I MAY tell you ... if you ask REAL nice... :cool:

What are the power artifacts?
The Power artifacts are tokens on the board that give a character extra powers, i.e., the Serpent Crown, which gives the holder Mind Control, or Excalibur, which gives Leadership. We'll have a WebShooter token (among others) in this scenario, giving the bearer the ability to use the Swinging Wires that will be on the board. We tried these in other scenarios, and they rock! Interestingly, they didn't destabilize the game, but made characters who had them immediate targets for attack. It totally shifts strategies.
:cool:

[bizarrome]

Thanks, I sent you a private message to learn more about your interesting scenario. Thanks a bunch for the tips! I may build some buildings myself. Right now I have five plastic buildings that I picked up for $4 each. A fire station, police station, hospital, a building I converted into a Stark Ent. warehouse, and a bunker building I am in the process of converting to a S.T.A.R. Labs building. Each building came with a bunch of extra items and a few I have kept that make great game tokens for certain items. Thanks again....

[bizarrome]

I am curious... Why can't Batman and/or Joker be used in this Scenerio?? I mean with out the Joker you still have 22 other figs of the Batman Enemy team but without Batman you only have six figs to choose from. As a matter of fact, if you only have one Batman Enemy fig, the team ability is useless. While the Batman team ability would still be in play. Is there a reason other than Batman Ally vs Batman Enemy?? Also, by claiming no dupes, a concept I readily agree on, you lower those numbers even more.