This one's one of my favorites. The police station. The shell was an actual fully-built model railroad building. Those are usually quite expensive but this one was given to us by our friend Bill (name withheld by court order), who we have known since we started gaming. So you can't beat the price...
The whole thing had to be carefully disassembled, which involved hack-sawing, etc. It was a real pain in the ass to do, but had to be done if we were gonna do anything with the interior.
As with many of our building, you can see that the corners were highlighted and weathered to make the building stand out, and pastel chalks were brushed on under eaves, etc to simulate mold and grime. Dark blackish-brown was dry-brushed onto the outer brick areas to show wear and tear on the exterior.
Zombietown RFD Police Station
This roof started out by being spray-painted Testors Chrome. Yes. No, I'm not kidding.. After that, it was sprayed with Testors Dull-cote to knock down the shine. Then the real work began. A wash of black, the Running Rust technique, and a dry-brushing of both silver and dark steel color in places made the roof look real.
Here's the ground floor. Basically a cut piece of foam board with some printed-out graphics of screwed-up floors pasted onto it. From there, foam board walls were added and then the details.
HOW TO MAKE BARS CHEAP:
Take 2 strips of cardboard, place wood glue on one side and place on a mat face up. Place toothpics onto the strips so that they contact both strips (the strips are the vertical bar pieces, see above). Then cut 2 more strips and put wood glue on one side of those. Place those stips onto the toothpicks at the same horizontal position as the first.
Let the whole mess dry, and then trim the excess off the toothpicks.
Paint and place.
Here's a detail view of one of the cells. Funny thing about jail, there's not much by way of furniture. Once again, the model railroad stuff comes into play. The turds are paint chips scraped from the painting table, the water can be "Mod Podge" or nail polish.
This shot also gives you a little better view of the bars, the technique for which is mentioned above.
Ah the squad room. Everything a cop could ever want or need. Detailed dossiers on all the town scumbags, which in this town means pretty much EVERYONE. A good pot of strong coffee, and of course DONUTS. Just a pile of 'em on the desk. Easy to make too: Just put down a glob of green putty, push the end of a ballpoint pen or toothpick down the center, do another, and another, repeat until satisfied. Then paint 'em.
The floors of the upstairs were done pretty much the same way: graphics printed on paper and then glued onto foam board. Let's take a look at some of the more "fun" locations up here....
HOLY CRAP! What the hell happened here? It's the morgue. And in Zombietown, the subjects can get rather "animated" when you try to examine their innards. Printed Graphics again, and the table is just an extra bit from an auto mechanic model set with some paint streaked and smeared all over it.
"I'm gonna get some HARD, pipe-wieldin' #%&@'s over here, with blowtorches... I'm gonna get Medieval on your ass..."
And that's precisely what Interrogation Room #1 is all about. It offers a variety of information extraction devices. From Oxyacetylene, to Electricity, to good-old-fashioned "Creative Dentistry". All bits from model kits or model Railroad packs.