Microtactix Deli and Dry Cleaners

It has been such a long time since I did a review of a card building I've made. Sadly, I suffered burnout making my WWG Police Station. For that, the exterior is 95% complete and the interior about 50% complete. Making furniture for it became such a chore, I came to a complete halt. Now though, I've got my mojo back and I thought I'd share with you a pair of buildings I've just made - the Microtactix 28mm scale Horseman's Deli and Magic Clean Dry Cleaners.

Microtactix offer a building called the Horseman's Deli. However, it comes with signage for an alternative establishment - the Magic Clean Dry Cleaners. Rather than choose which one to build I decided to make them both, side by side.

 

The dry cleaners is a mirror image of the deli's, although as you can see I have omitted the store room from the roof of it. I'd have prefered the roofs to be gridless but that's just a minor criticism.

This front view nicely shows off the large windows and glass doors. I printed the windows and doors onto transparency paper to give the model that realistic glass look. If you're not into that kind of super detailing, just use the ordinary printed version. For me, the doors were quite a challenge to make. I hinge my doors with masking tape sandwiched in between two thin pieces of card, upon which I glue the image of the door, which I print out on matte photo paper (roughly around 120 -130 gm). The problem with these doors is that I had such a thin strip of card to work with at the side of the door to stick the masking tape to. However, there was enough and the hinge worked fine. These doors do open and close and I'm happy with how they turned out.

 This is the boring right hand side of the dry cleaners. When I scanned in the original printouts so that I could flip the images for a mirror versions the colours didn't print out true when I printed them out. It isn't a big difference but it is noticable, more so inside than out.

 Here's the back of the buildings and you have to look very closely to see that the colours don't quite match. The dry cleaners has more of a blue tinge to the deli's. The windows were printed onto transparency paper and the doors do open and close. These doors were a doddle to make.

The left side of the deli's has been adorned with three advertising posters that Microtactix provide with this set. They add a bit of colour.

This overhead shot of the interior shows all of the additional work I've done to these models. It must be noted that the Microtactix models come without any interior detail. What you see in the photo above and those below are stuff that I've added myself. The wooden floor came from the record store found in the WWG Mayhem Mega Mall set. It was 9" by 7" so I only had to cut off 1" to make it fit the 9" by 6" footprint of these two buildings.

The interior walls are just the same as the exterior walls but reversed so that they fit in properly. To keep things simple, I was originally going to leave both shops unfurnished, but I soon realised I could furnish the dry cleaners with items from the clothing store found in the WWG Mayhem Mega Mall set. Here you see two clothes racks and a shelf unit stocked with folded clothing.

The only item of furnishing in the deli's is the step ladders, which lead up to a deserted storage room. Until I can find some decent furnishing for my deli it will remain as is. At present the store is either in the process of opening or closing down. The poster on the wall of the dry cleaners was provided by Microtactix and was meant to be stuck in the front window. I decided against that and stuck it behind the cashier's desk.

 At the front of the dry cleaners are three more props from the clothes store found in the WWG Mayhem Mega Mall set. They are the cash till, the cash desk (much cut down from the original) and the cashier's stool. There should be more furniture in here like for example, a steam press and sewing machine, but what I have is enough to show that this looks vaguely like a dry cleaners.

And finally, the right side view of the interior. I forgot to mention that the step ladders in the deli are a WWG kitbash, that are still available from the Mayhem City kitbash page of the website. A word of warning, I found making mine an incredibly fiddly experience when I reinforced them with mounting card. WWG provide a new set of step ladders in the TLX Mayhem Under Construction set, but to be honest, I find them a bit naff. They are much smaller and nothing more than a box shape with all the gaps between the steps blacked in.
So, now I have two new buildings to add to Mayhem City and for once, they aren't WWG models. These were easy models to make, despite my super detailing like the opening doors, transparent windows and interior design. From a personal perspective, I've regained my enthusiasm for card modelling. I'm going to make some vehicles next, but after that I'm not sure if I should start a new model building or try and finish my police station. Any thoughts?
I've deliberately kept the best bit about these models to last. They are free. Yep, you can download them for free from http://www.rpgnow.com/product_info.php?products_id=29057&it=1 They fit in well with the WWG scenery, even if they don't come with interior detail. All told, it took me roughly two weeks to make these shops. They will make an appearance in my next ATZ batrep, which I'm playing right now. Yes, I have this weekend free to play ATZ. Woot, woot and double woot!