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Thanks everyone, good to see I haven't bored you all away.

Theophony wrote:...CD city looks interesting reminds me of MIB where there's a whole galaxy on the dog collar.

Yeah, that kind of thing. Or the Simpsons where Lisa made some kind of microscopic civilisation.
I don't know where the idea came from, I just looked at the CD player and the thought hit that it would be nice if it had a city inside.

Dark traveller777 did a great job with your kits as well.

Yes, he did. It's always nice to see someone from across the globe using something that you have created.

Never did the whole decoupage thing myself, but it looks quality to me .

As I said, I have vague memories of doing this as a child. But when life gives you multiple copies of a single picture, make decoupage.

Red Harvest wrote:I was on the injured reserve list for the past three weeks. No more to be said of it.

The football plaque turned out very well. And I suppose that it may well be excellent advice to never walk alone in Liverpool. Some left-handed bass player may hit you up for a fiver or something

Hope it heals well and leaves a manly scar.
Thanks.
As with many mottoes, it's probably best not to think too much about them. It may imply that even if you attempted to walk alone, you couldn't...
I've only been to Liverpool once, I believe, and that was to look at the Uni'. Didn't see any left-handed bass players then, but that doesn't mean there wasn't any...

Decoupage looks top notch. But where is the mini to show scale? The technique could be used for a specialty table to show some sort of depth to things... I'm thinking a spaceship table or something indoors. The walls along the edges done up so as to give an illusion that the space continues beyond the table top?

Interesting idea there, Red'. I'll make a note.
Sorry, didn't think about scale for that picture. The original picture is 235x186mm (9.25x7.32 inches).

Cityscape on a CD. Interesting.

I like interesting.

weetyskemian44 wrote:That's cool DrH, very cool. I reckon it'll look great, like sim city or that bit in futurama where bender gets a mini-civilization growing on his but.

Yep, that too.

City planning roughly done.
I laid out the "buildings" and moved them about to get an interesting layout and then sketched out the positions and roads between them.
Here you can see the layout, with and without buildings, and the skyline.


The industrial area (over the river on the left of the photos) can and has been glued down, as has the central square skyscraper.

Next job is to flatten the ground where the buildings go (so they are not at random angles).
Once that is done I'll start at the skyscraper, painting and detailing that and the surrounding roads etc. and work outwards, adding buildings and details.

This reminds me of the micro cityscapes in the lego boardgames. What I really want, though, is this whole thing cradled in the palm of a giant brainiac-like figure...

 inmygravenimage wrote:
This reminds me of the micro cityscapes in the lego boardgames. What I really want, though, is this whole thing cradled in the palm of a giant brainiac-like figure...

Thanks Graven. With it in a CD player, whoever eventually buys it can play the giant figure.

Progress:
The ground has been levelled off for the main buildings. Some carving and some putty-ing was required in addition to a few pieces of plasticard.

And I've started detailing the central skyscraper. Yes, that is a hollow, triangular spike (which will get spikier in time) on top.

Also of note, the circular dip in front of the tower's tiny doorway will be a pool in a park, possibly with a fountain (if I can come up with a way to make a fountain at this scale).

Make the fountain out of a piece of fishing line.

Micro-fity is coming along very nicely!

Not gone, just... a bit distracted.

Among other things, reading some Dune pre/sequels, I think I was you who brought that up some time ago, so...

City looks good, will be interesting to see it develop.

 Theophony wrote:
Make the fountain out of a piece of fishing line.

Or clear sewing thread. Might be better for something this scale.

Thanks Theo, Shas.

Littletower wrote:Not gone, just... a bit distracted.

Among other things, reading some Dune pre/sequels, I think I was you who brought that up some time ago, so...

Yeah that was me. Which ones are you reading, how are you liking them?

City looks good, will be interesting to see it develop.

Ta. Should start to get more interesting as we go.

Red Harvest wrote:

 Theophony wrote:
Make the fountain out of a piece of fishing line.

Or clear sewing thread. Might be better for something this scale.

Both good ideas. I have some others and may try a few and see what turns out best. All will depend on what kind of fountain I'm after; squirty jets or fans or something else (Need to research first).

Todays progress is to show the central tower with it's details, primed (and still wet) and ready for paint (once dried, and I've fixed a few things that have shown up with primer...).


You can see the mast (that all tall buildings have so that they can claim they are taller than they really are), that is now more spiky with the addition of the end of a pin; an actual metal, "can hear a pin drop", sharp, pin. With the CD player lid above the city I feel that I can really add details that are finer, more delicate, and sharper than normal, as they are not going to be touched or accidentally brushed against, as with an "open" model.

I'll take bets on how long it'll be before I'll stab myself with it.

There is the roof access doorway (black triangle) and the building's sign (white triangle), and a window cleaning crane thing: While it wouldn't actually be able to reach all sides of the tower, at this scale it's more about giving the impression of details, rather than realistically creating functional things (there's only so small you can make something before it becomes impossible to glue it together).

The plan for this building is a full glass skyscraper. This means I'm going to be painting in reflections of the surrounding buildings that I haven't added yet, as well as the sky and clouds (that haven't been planned yet), and any landscape that can be "seen" beyond the buildings (that also hasn't been fully planned beyond the hills). And I may add the occasional "lit" window too.
Kind of the same style as the extreme nmm, shiny armour you see.

This is an awesome concept! Looking forward to seeing it develop.

Such a cool idea Dr.H - can't wait to see this grow and take shape - awesome start

Thanks ckig and Januine. Developing and taking shape it shall.

Progress on the central skyscraper; Painted the reflections.

Photos show the surrounding buildings in place and removed so that you can see what is supposed to be being reflected, and what I have actually painted.
Modifications may take place if I do something drastic with the painting of the surrounding buildings (which I plan of painting separately and then gluing on, one at a time).
The reflections do extend higher than the corresponding building as this model will likely be looked at from slightly above (unlike these photos).


Next is to do all the other details on this tower and then it's the surrounding area and the park (which will have it's reflections added).

Keep Calm and Continue With Your Work...

Simply amazing micro-work there!

Love that. Excellent work.

Love the colours going on there. Really coming together.

Red Harvest wrote: Keep Calm and Continue With Your Work...

I am calm! Don't I look calm? ICanBeCalmIfIWantJustYouSee...

Thanks Shas, Gits' and Graven.

inmygravenimage wrote:Love the colours going on there. Really coming together.

The colours don't come out quite as vibrant in real life, just due to being such a small area. If I left them a bit more muted, they don't look distinct.

More progress. Not much as I snapped off the spikey tower and had to re-glue it, but at least it's straighter now (wasn't straight enough for me, whether any of you noticed it or not).

I've painted the rest of the skyscraper now;
white edging,
white/grey crane (as red or yellow would stand out too much and be "vulgar" on the nice skyscraper with it's shiny glass and white accents),
Tiny red door for roof access (as that needs to stand out or you don't notice that there is a door up there),
window-washer cradle in industrial yellow (as how would the men know not to fall out otherwise), That's painted detail on that, just a flat piece of plastic.
Our-tower-is-bigger-than-yours spiky bit is also painted like the cradle, just with metallic.
And the roof-top sign and doorway are painted with inviting colours (pink and green) to look like an actual sign.

And I've had a go at a potential fountain idea I had and had to try:
Piece of clear sprue (rarer than it's grey cousin, but no less useful),
Carved, rounded and scratched at the top,
Drilled into from the bottom,
and then smoothed around the "invisible" bit with liquid poly cement.

With some white dry-brushing to accentuate the fluffy top, and the bottom face (the one glued to to base) painted blue, I think it's a contender.



You can also see I've been planning the roads, now to paint the pavement and the roads properly... and the park...

Wow that is a really neat building dr. H. I really like that you are doing the city and painting the reflections.

Thanks Comrade.

While I was reasonably happy with the above fountain, and painting did help a little. Ultimately, is was a bit too big; especially when I added the trees (that were half the size).
I couldn't use this technique for anything smaller, carving something 1x1mm is just not possible with a scalpel. And I've ended up with fountains smaller than that.

Therefore, I had a root around for anything like that mentioned by Theo' and Red'... and couldn't find clear fishing wire or sewing thread, but I did find some optical fibres.
Scraping, cutting and roughing up the end, then cutting off a length gives the below:

And I've painted the roads, with markings, and cars... and added trees (bit of foam stuck to a length of 0.4mm wire).

Bare in mind that the park here (the green bit) is about a square centimetre.


On to the next building...

Wonderfully nutty!

It's like Sim City, but in real3D. Interesting idea and build, watching intently...

New fountains look good. The other fountain could work too though. Here in St. Louis we have the arch 660' tall and across the river there is a fountain that erupts at noon, 6pm and 9pm, and it is the same height as the arch if your positioned correctly on this side of the Mississippi River it looks like a bow and arrow.

http://www.meprd.org/mmmp.html

Thats something you don't see everyday!

RexHavoc wrote:Wonderfully nutty!

Thanks Rex'. I'm always pushing the boundaries (of what? is left up to the reader).

Ruglud wrote:It's like Sim City, but in real3D. Interesting idea and build, watching intently...

It is. Yeah, it's interesting to try something on this scale, there's different ways of thinking involved.

Theophony wrote:New fountains look good. The other fountain could work too though. Here in St. Louis we have the arch 660' tall and across the river there is a fountain that erupts at noon, 6pm and 9pm, and it is the same height as the arch if your positioned correctly on this side of the Mississippi River it looks like a bow and arrow.

http://www.meprd.org/mmmp.html

Thanks Theo'. It was more the builk of the original fountain that was the problem; I couldn't see anyone in the park staying dry. It's one thing watching a massive fountain from the other side of a river, it's another when you are stuck within a small park between buildings and it's raining down on you.

Llamahead wrote:Thats something you don't see everyday!

And that's something I strive for everyday.
That phrase reminds me of one of my few experiences with D&D (or a similar game) many years ago:


Back to the CD City, I've added the next building.
Loosely inspired by the BT tower in colouration at least.

 Dr H wrote:

Back to the CD City, I've added the next building.
Loosely inspired by the BT tower in colouration at least.

I haven't followed your work for a while, as I was away from home...
But man. You are going small and detailed!
I dig this!

Lovely... giant round-a-bouts... shoot me now.

At first glance the screws in the lid of the CD player looked like little alien UFOs coming in to destroy the city . Guess I'm just anticipating ID2 coming out

Thanks StarDrop.

Thanks Gits'. They're not so much roundabouts, more interconnecting roads that follow the terrain and positions of the buildings: more fluid than a perfect grid layout.
They will make more sense once the large buildings are placed in the middle of each one.

Theo, I do have plans for that part of the lid, but maybe I'll leave one or two UFOs.

Third building done, and a teaser of the next. This should give an idea of the proximity of the buildings.

That's looking really spectacular!

Khorne Building?!!!
Lovely work Dr.H

So small, yet so HUGE!