How To - Ruined Cityscape

[Sonneilon]

I know DoomsDay Machine Ch4 took awhile to complete. I had a lot of it done, but between school, FFXI ONline (which I quit), mass problems and trying to visual the set kept me from working on it. This is just how I do things (as usual).

First off, the set had to be modular. Yeah, one can do a WHOLE cityscape but when you need to jam your camera in weird, tight places, you have to be able to move things around, take walls down, MOVE the sets to a better shooting location etc.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v474/Sonneilon/How%20To%20-%20Ruined%20City/01.jpg

Basically, I started cutting out what I figured were war-torn walls and the scale is not done with a ruler, but by using different sized figures. As you can see here, I'm using ResoDuke and TunnelRat. It'd be pretty lame if I cut the window holes too low or too high, right?

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v474/Sonneilon/How%20To%20-%20Ruined%20City/02.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v474/Sonneilon/How%20To%20-%20Ruined%20City/03.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v474/Sonneilon/How%20To%20-%20Ruined%20City/04.jpg

I wanted to give texture to the walls. So I grabbed my good old lil cup of spackle and spread it on the foamboard. Thicker in some places, letting veins happen, etc... It looked pretty neat. It also seemed to protect the foamboard a bit in that, it didn't wrap as much and the paint gripped better.

[Sonneilon]

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v474/Sonneilon/How%20To%20-%20Ruined%20City/05.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v474/Sonneilon/How%20To%20-%20Ruined%20City/06.jpg

Now, these blasted walls are different than what I usually do in that, they were to be painted on BOTH sides. I chose a grayscale for doing the outer walls as you can see here. This is the 1st set I built for the story for Damascus. You got 2 different sized streets. The key here is to shoot in a way where you get the sense of a city fight which explains why some of the walls are very differently sized.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v474/Sonneilon/How%20To%20-%20Ruined%20City/07.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v474/Sonneilon/How%20To%20-%20Ruined%20City/09.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v474/Sonneilon/How%20To%20-%20Ruined%20City/08.jpg

The interior walls are very different. They too are war-torn but there are different colors involved. I admit I DID make the mistake of making the outer walls not brown enough to look like a city in the Middle East. So I played w/ browns INSIDE the walls. Notice, too, that ResoDuke is trying out the windows.

[Sonneilon]

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v474/Sonneilon/How%20To%20-%20Ruined%20City/011.jpg

At some point, I realized I wanted the chapter to be longer. I wanted a better running scene and to showcase the NeoVipers more. So I built another set. A 1-way street but it had to look very different than what the 2nd half of the story showcases. Basically, it goes from a side business area to the warehouse district. ie; you can see garage doors and while the windows are boarded up, it's supposed to look like a business used to be there. Not quite as wartorn.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v474/Sonneilon/How%20To%20-%20Ruined%20City/012.jpg

Basic view of the set from the beginning of Chapter4.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v474/Sonneilon/How%20To%20-%20Ruined%20City/013.jpg

I just thought it'd be nice to throw a splash of color so I used some bright colors to offset the drab gray that MOST of this dio entails. I may have added a few more details before I actually shot the dio. As well, you never see the whole thing, only parts of the full set. AND I rely heavily on angles and fake backgrounds so you don't see the wall or the figures behind it or WHATEVER ends up on my walls. :D

Enjoi.

[ThinkTank]

That looks pretty good so far. I may want to borrow the spackle idea.

[Tracker]

that is cool and looks easy to do too