Plasticville Skyscraper: My ridiculous dream, realized (Done! - Updated 13 Jun 19)

 Looks great !  Your gonna scratch that 45.

I love it.... keep posting your progress.

Marvelous---what did youuse to cut the building apart with?

Great project. Might try this myself. I did something similar with the Plasticville Hotels to create taller hotel buildings.

Great job........Plasticville is perfect for kit-bashes!

Peter

Great looking rebuild of Plasticville !   Looking forward to next step pics and completion, sir.  I do not have a large city downtown, but many smaller towns have multi-storey buildings.  Hmmmmmmm…..

Jesse

Wow!  You're a genius.  I wish, I had your patience.

Ha, that is awesome!

I like the pictures before you painted the wood.  Looks like an architectural detail.  May want to do a contrasting color on those bands like on a real building.

Very nicely done!  I'd like to recommend that you add a radio transmitter/antenna to the roof...    

Mitch 

Lyle posted:

Marvelous---what did youuse to cut the building apart with?

Thanks!   I used a compound miter saw to cut the building apart, using wood blocks as a jig to keep the plastic pieces in place and ensure consistent sizing.

__________________

CHOO-CHOO Mike:  Fair point, but as the 45 was eventually built into a sign on another building I wasn't too worried about it

Sean: I agree on the coloring.   I will very likely go with a shade difference or contrast color on some of the detail parts to make them stand out when I get to the painting phase

Mitch: I might do that.  I was considering what I might add to the roof that would add more height but would not detract from a clean look nor be architecturally inconsistent... not sure. 

Jess:  My downtown won't be large either...  I think I'm looking at a cluster of maybe 5-6 tall (>24") buildings, plus several smaller ones, when it's all said and done.  This is tall building #2 for me (#1 is a Menards York hotel).   #3 will be an American Flyer kitbash, #4 and beyond is TBD (weighing some options)

________________

Thanks, everyone, for all the compliments!

Nice looking building great job should have used the floor plans between each story really got have had fun lighting it then. 

Excellent use of the materials and the execution of the idea!

My kind of build!!...Love it!!  Make sure you include this in our "Tall Building Tuesday" thread!!

Have you ever heard of American Skyline?  It was contemporary with the original Plasticville.  We had one Skyline hi-rise office building on our old O27 layout...

https://www.google.com/search?...biw=1680&bih=919

As I recall, American Skyline was closer to S scale, maybe a tad smaller than S. A shame as I created some really grand buildings . Kenner's Girder and Panel sets were much closer to O, although much less detailed. The girder framework made a nice "under construction" scene.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/..._Panel_building_sets

Man, that's gonna be great...

Each story of the high-rise hospital could be designated to a medical specialty and discretely labeled, perhaps as:
   1  Emergency
   2  Obstetrics
   3  Pediatrics
   4  Orthopedics
   5  Oncology
   6  Medical
   7  Surgery
   8  Geriatrics

Suggestion: Place a helicopter landing pad nearby. Most urban hospitals have that capability.

Carry on ....

Mike Mottler     LCCA 12394
Director of Communications (Retired)
UAMS Medical Center, Little Rock, AR

That's as clever and as creative as it gets! Fabulous.

FrankM

Oncology is usually in the basement to more completely trap stray X-rays.

Love the hospital. Really a nicely done imaginative job.

Great job!

Love it.  Plasticville is under rated.  Look at the potential for larger and different buildings at great cost savings !

You have done amazing job. It is so neat that Plasticville can be kitbashed into great buildings.

-Tom

Frzz, your imagination and skill just keep churning out great projects.  Wonderful build, can't wait to see the finished project and your whole downtown in Tall Building Tuesdays.  Angelsgate must surely miss you.

Very cool. Can't wait to see more.

Bob

Great creativity on this model.

FAN-tastic!

Very creative and skilled!  Thanks for sharing.

Really nice!!!

Thanks again for all the compliments!    

I've only been able to work in this project for a couple hours over the last week or so, but wanted to share my progress to date on completing the building façade.  Since the original post, I've finished covering the gaps where the p-ville hospital sections are joined & added some more detail work to the front.

Here's the overall look right now:

As you can see here, I wrapped some trim around the edges to seal the remaining gaps.  I also used some slices of rounded wood trim to add more detail/interest along the center (this is leftover trim from when I built an art deco bridge for part of the layout).  At the bottom of the wood trim, I used some metal pieces (the silver parts below) to end the design with more of a flourish:  

Those metal pieces are vintage art deco cufflinks, with the cufflink posts removed... I was pleasantly surprised with both how fast they shipped and how well they matched-up with the wooden trim pieces.  Here they are before they were modified:

I also went ahead and attached the steps, since they will be (mostly) the same base color as the building.  I plan to do a semi-detailed first floor, but the rest of the building will be empty & have frosted or obscured windows:

Here you can see I do have some light filling and sanding to do before it's time to paint, especially along the seams.  Don't want light to leak through when this is done.  Filling and sanding is the next step, followed by primer:

More to come!

Beautiful! Reminds me of the Art Deco buildings in Miami Beach.

This is an exceptionally interesting and successful project. I love this approach to modeling. 

Great work!

Well, it's been a couple weeks since my last update on this project.  I've invested a little time in it here and there, and now have the building mostly painted and the interior windows installed.  It's been a little bit of an adventure as I'm making this up as I go...

After sanding the wooden parts of the building, I sealed them with a couple coats of water-based polyurethane to help hide the wood grain.  The next step after that was to paint the building its base color.   I tried out gray first but that was a little bit too foreboding and "Gotham City".  Below is the building in the cream color I eventually settled on (pictures were taken in between coats).  My thought was that this color will also tend to pick-up on variable lighting effects around the layout:

Here I started painting the layered vertical detail in shades of gray.   I added the blue for a pop of color... the blue parts were originally green, but that didn't seem quite vibrant enough.

After sleeping on it for a couple nights, I went ahead and painted the brick detail parts between each window gray to better balance the building's color scheme.  I also added window glass in each of the windows and doors, and added a couple more touches of blue near the front door. 

Each of the windows  is made rippled plastic (kind of like a shower door).  I'd originally bouht the stuff to use as water on the layout, but found that I prefer the look of painted water.  The rippled plastic works well in the windows, I think, as you get a nice transparent effect but obscure the interior enough that you don't need to fully finish it (more on that to come... I'm working on some ideas).  In the top center window below, you can see how the rippled plastic reflects the light:  

Here's another angle on the building as it currently stands.  The "glass" in the doors is clear, as I plan to at least partially finish the first floor.  Doors ar enot installed yet:

Next-up is interior lighting and finishing work!

Very nice and very Art Deco.

That thing is AWESOME!

Truly amazing....well done!

I've enjoyed seeing your progress on this building to date! You have a true talent for scratch building/kit bashing, it looks wonderful! I look forward to the next update!

Rusty

The next thing I worked on for this building was the interior.  Most of the interior is just open space with translucent glass, but I did build a fairly detailed first floor so there's something to see when you look in the front (or side) door.  I like to do foamboard-based interiors that just pop in from the bottom:

Lighting for the interior is via three LED strips, positioned at even intervals within the building.  I like the rolled LED strips that can be cut to length, combined with the convenience of connectors designed to join sections of lighting.   Easy peezy LED lights:

LEDs installed and wired:

Here is the building lit for the first time:

...and the front door, both open and closed:

Roof detail.  I made the skylight more opaque than the sides, but wanted the light to reflect through at least some::

...and the building positioned in its natural habitat.   Not sure if this will be the final position as I have several other tall buildings to build and squeeze in, but it's a good start to a bustling downtown:

...I also played with the lighting in the room a bit to see how it played off the building:

Done!

frizzinbee posted:

The next thing I worked on for this building was the interior.  Most of the interior is just open space with translucent glass, but I did build a fairly detailed first floor so there's something to see when you look in the front (or side) door.  I like to do foamboard-based interiors that just pop in from the bottom:

Lighting for the interior is via three LED strips, positioned at even intervals within the building.  I like the rolled LED strips that can be cut to length, combined with the convenience of connectors designed to join sections of lighting.   Easy peezy LED lights:

LEDs installed and wired:

Here is the building lit for the first time:

...and the front door, both open and closed:

Roof detail.  I made the skylight more opaque than the sides, but wanted the light to reflect through at least some::

...and the building positioned in its natural habitat.   Not sure if this will be the final position as I have several other tall buildings to build and squeeze in, but it's a good start to a bustling downtown:

...I also played with the lighting in the room a bit to see how it played off the building:

Done!

Everything's been said during the build process so I'll just say WOW!

It looks great on the layout.  Can't wait to see its American Flyer cousin move into the neighborhood.  Where did you get those plug in pig tails for the led strip lights?