Expanding my Asian Real Estate Holdings . . .

Many of you from the old FOF might remember the 15mm bars I made out of paper buildings from Normandy.  If you don't, here's a picture of them:


There was supposed to be a fourth one in the group.  Partially finished, it has set on my painting desk for the several years that I went away from Vietnam and focused on my sailing ships.  I decided to finish it as a way of starting to get back "in-country," as it were.  The original plan was to put an interior in it like the Texas bar in the photo.  However, I didn't want to do all that work for something that really can't be seen anyway (I mean, see the above photo).  I decided to try something a little different, so modelled the building with one of the sliding doors closed and one partially open.  I thought that it might give the impression of an interior without having to, you know, do all the work.

Originally there were two windows on the second floor, but I took one of them out using GIMP before it was printed.  The original plan was to put a door there, suggesting that the "balcony" section behind the sign was real.  I decided against that, because the area is barely large enough to fit a Peter Pig 15mm figure in there.  Rather than fire up the printer again, I decided to take the approach any slumlord would:  Just block the area off with whatever is available.  That's how I wound up with this:

Yes, the balcony area is a little crooked, but that will be hidden once the front is in place.  A bit more plastic sheet, some HO scale corrugated tin for the awning, and some plastic rod later and the building itself is finished:


It's not DONE, done of course.  I still need to weather the building and decide what sign to use.  Originally, I had planned to keep each of these as a separate structure so that they could be put anywhere.  Instead, I think I'm going to mount them on a sidewalk/city block base with no space in between them.  My inspiration is the "Street of Bars" pictures from Vung Tau, 1967 and '68.

(For some reason it won't let me upload the 1968 photo, but I think the one above will give an idea. And yes, I admit it is a loose interpretation.  
BWW

Looks good - don't worry about wonky balconies etc. - Vietnamese buildings from that era have a ramshackle look about them.

Yeah, when I looked at my prototype photos I've collected from the web, my first thought was NOT, "Those look like they were built with great respect for building codes."

The plan is to build up a few city blocks for use in urban scenarios, or to serve as the main town in a campaign game. At some point, I will get out my other buildings and photograph them as well.

Looks fantastic Brian. Glad to have you back!

Thanks Darby, it's nice to be back. As an aside, I'm planning on some posts that deal directly with your sig line. . . .

Looks great Brian!

Darby wrote:Glad to have you back!

Ditto! Nice to have you back!

Thanks gents. There won't be any actual gaming until I get the garage (and hence, my game table out there) cleaned off. The running joke has always been that in the summertime, all we can play are either Vietnam or Western Desert WWII!

cool stuff